Road Safety – A Global Emergency The EU Direction of Travel

The reality is that transport and mobility matters to us all, it literally sustains our lives being an enabler of our economic and social life. ‘We’ take it for granted and perhaps none more so than the motorcar. Yet road transport also comes at a price – it takes lives. From a United Nations perspective, it is identified that road crashes risk jeopardizing the whole sustainable development agenda. This research commences by reflecting on the history and strategic direction being advocated at an international level. It considers the global divide, before attention and emphasis is turned to the EU’s approach to saving lives on the road. This is also compared with the US. The method applied is from a legal/policy measures approach – which puts the driver at the heart of intervention strategies. Focus in particular is accorded to the success of the EU driver/education law and policy. Comparisons are also drawn within, between the pandemic of Covid-19 and this global epidemic (in terms of lives lost). It concludes by declaring road deaths as a global emergency, one that needs to be approached in the same way and with the same vigour and haste, in order to stop numbers rising.