By Tina George, Minna
The World Health Organization, WHO, the United Nations, UN, and other stakeholders have begun the campaign for 30 kilometres speed limit in cities to reduce road traffic deaths and injuries.
The call was made during the launch of the 6th United Nations Global Road Safety Week, which will end on May 23rd.
The stakeholders pointed out that low speed will ensure that the streets were livable and lives would be saved.
In the virtual launch, the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus pointed out that road traffic crashes were the leading cause of deaths for children and young adults, adding that although much progress was made, there was still long way ahead in ensuring safety on the roads.
“We need a new vision for creating safe, healthy, green and livable cities. Low-speed streets are an important part of that vision. Evidence has shown that limiting driving speeds to 30 kilometres or 20 miles per hour in cities, will significantly reduce road traffic deaths and injuries. It promotes healthy lifestyles through walking and cycling and decreases air and noise pollution.”
Ghebreyesus stated that countries should not only set sensible speed limits but also work at enforcing them while pledging the commitment of WHO to support countries and cities to implement speed management and other safety measures.
In her address, the Executive Director of the UN-Habitat, Mrs Maimunah Sharif said that road safety is the other crisis faced by the world alongside COVID-19 and climate change.
She added that cities have major role to play in reducing the incidents of injuries and deaths, which occur as a result of road crashes.
Mrs Sharif stressed the importance for government to reduce cars on the roads, pointing out that this could be done by improving and expanding public transportation.
“We must ensure that trust in public transportation is regained and government invest in the modernization of the public transport system to become safe and accessible.”
The WHO Director, Department of Social Determinants of Health, Dr Etienne Krug called on leaders to make the right decisions, take the right action and be committed to limit speeds at 30 kilometre per hour.
“Good laws, enforcing the laws, infrastructure changes, vehicle improvement and awareness for all road users on how to behave when driving, is what governments need to be committed to.
“We are at crossroads; we can continue doing what we are doing and continue to pay the huge price with deaths and injuries in the millions on our roads all over the world or we can take things in our hands and adopt the new demand”, he said.
In Nigeria, during the launch of the UN Global Road Safety Week by the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), the WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti called on African leaders to strive towards implementing the 30 kilometres speed limit as other nations in Europe and Asia had succeeded in implementing it.
He noted that speed limit is not only the measure that will end road traffic deaths and injuries, but that Africans and Nigerians needed to obey road signs and traffic lights.
Moeti’s speech was delivered by the FRSC Corps Marshall, Boboye Olayemi.
“We can see what happens on our roads, how risky it has been for the pedestrian to cross the roads even if he treks. I want to urge us all to besides controlling the speed while driving, we should respect the traffic light and other signs in our roads to make the roads more safer”, Moeti said.
In a related development, the GreenLight Initiative called on road management agencies such as the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), to enact and implement a 30km speed limit policy in high risks areas such as school zones, streets, and market corridors across Nigeria.
The Executive Director, Simon Obi in a press statement noted that this call for action is urgent because it saves lives and important for the sake of children and youths as they are the most vulnerable victims of road traffic crashes.
The United Nations Global Road Safety Week (UNGRSW) is a biennial global road safety campaign hosted by the World Health Organization (WHO).
It brings together individuals, governments, NGOs, corporations, and other organizations from around the world to raise awareness on road safety and make changes that will reduce the number of roads crashes on the world roads.
