#SafeKidsLives campaign reaches one million supporters

23 November 2015

In time for the 2nd Global High Level Conference on Road Safety in Brasilia, the #SaveKidsLives campaign, which calls for action to protect children on the world’s roads, has reached one million supporters.

With the backing of over a million people worldwide, #SaveKidsLives will now send a strong message calling on policy makers participating in the Global High Level Conference to take urgent steps to put measures in place to keep children and all road users safe. #SaveKidsLives is calling on Governments and the international community to meet the UN’s ‘Global Goals’ target of halving road traffic fatalities by 2020.

The campaign’s ‘Child Declaration for Road Safety’ drafted in consultation with children from around the world calls for a range of key life saving measures including:

• To demand investment in a ‘Safe System’ approach to road safety, including managing vehicle speed through road design and traffic calming, awareness raising and speed enforcement
• To re-focus road and urban design policy to put pedestrian access and safety as the first priority, with equitable sharing of road space; provision of safe pavements and crossing points, and traffic speed reductions
• To promote action to tackle drink driving, to ensure school bus transportation is safe, well maintained and has seat belts, and to promote seat-belt and motorcycle helmet use particularly where motorcycles are the main means of family transport.

The #SaveKidsLives campaign has received guidance and support from the FIA Foundation and is led by the United Nations Road Safety Collaboration. The Global Alliance of NGOs for Road Safety and the NGO Youth for Road Safety (YOURS) play a principal role in managing the campaign. FIA automobile clubs have been prominent in supporting the campaign, and the FIA Foundation has provided donor funding and technical support. One of the Foundation’s partners, AIP Foundation, has collected more than 500,000 signatures for the #SaveKidsLives Declaration in South East Asia and China.