Road Safety: A Global Crisis

UNESCAP Regional Seminar on Road Safety, New Delhi, 2019

Soames Job

Head of the Global Road Safety Facility (GRSF)

Global Lead for Road Safety, World Bank

This address: core areas covered (briefly)

1. The Global Road Safety Crisis - Predicting scale of the problem

2. Can we afford to do Road Safety?- Economic Costs

3. Road Safety can be delivered- Evidence-based solutions, not common sense

4. What the World Bank and GRSF are doing

- Road Safety Observatory for Asia

The Road Safety Crisis is Worsening• We will not meet the United Nations Decade

target or the SDG targets

• 2013 = 1.25 million deaths • 2016 = 1.35 million deaths

• Bangladesh: 2013 = 21 316 deaths (WHO for 2013) 2016= 24 954 deaths (WHO for 2016) (Officially, Police: 2 376)

The Road Safety Crisis is Worsening• We will not meet the United Nations Decade

target or the SDG targets

• 2013 = 1.25 million deaths • 2016 = 1.35 million deaths

• Simple extrapolation:…………Brutal prediction:

The decade 2021 to 2030 = 17.4 million deaths and 500m+ injuries Road crashes are the scale of a World War.

Can we afford to do road safety3-7% of GDP is critical but not convincing to some

Q: Does halving deaths & injuries = more GDP growth?

A: YES: Economic analysis of 5 countries by WB/GRSF

(With Bloomberg Philanthropies funding)

- GDP grows faster: 7% to 22% more over 24 years

- For some countries almost an extra 1% per year

Road safety = good economic investment

Road Safety can be delivered: great value

• Road safety is a product, which can be delivered with managed investment

• Evidence-based solutions, not common sense

• Many countries are succeeding and we see close relationships between policy and reduced death numbers

• Example: iRAP Report in China: Investing US$4,579,412 = saves 198 FSI= saves US$ $25,511,967 in crash costs. BCR = 6.

6

World Bank & Road Safety• Key part of projects

• Road Safety safeguard went into effect October 2018

– First systematic requirement that road safety must be addressed in projects which can influence road safety

– Guidance on requirements

– Exciting development

GRSF Current Donors and Funders

8GRSF: Huge leveraging ratio

GRSFGlobally

influential reports

9

GRSF: Influential

guiding research

publications & Road Safety

Observatories(Incl: Asia)

10

110

The World Bank &

the Global Road Safety

Facility:

e.g., in LIC: Nepal

Before

During

After

After

Thank you for your attention

Soames Job

We talk about rOad safety badly: creating barriers to SAFE SYSTEM and

EVIDENCE BASED ACTION

We talk about raod safety badly: Old WRONG model still promoted, creating barriers

TO SAFE SYSTEM and ACTIONWrong answer to a wrong question: Key Q: not what causes crashes but what causes FSI

Lets make salt……….

New Model: Safe System & Scientific Reality

• Focus on solutions not problems: remove any one cause and problem can’t occur

Speed = 100%

Thank you for your attention

Soames Job