Global Plan for the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021–2030

Globally, road traffic crashes cause nearly 1.3 million preventable deaths and an estimated 50 million injuries each year – making it the leading killer of children and young people worldwide. As things stand, they are set to cause a further estimated 13 million deaths and 500 million injuries during the next decade and hinder sustainable development, particularly in low and middle-income countries. These unacceptable numbers, both in absolute and relative terms, have remained largely unchanged for the past 20 years, despite the painstaking work of the United Nations and other road safety bodies.

Recognizing the importance of the problem and the need to act, governments from around the world declared unanimously — through UN General Assembly Resolution 74/299 — a Second Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021–2030 with the explicit target to reduce road deaths and injuries by at least 50% during that period.

This plan describes the actions needed to achieve that target. It is aimed at senior policy makers and should serve as a blueprint for the development of national and local plans and targets. As we embark on the Second Decade of Action for Road Safety, governments and global stakeholders must choose between “business as usual” – in the hopes that this will be enough to significantly reduce the number of deaths – or acting boldly and decisively, using the tools and knowledge gained from the last Decade of Action to change course.

The Global Plan for the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021-2030 rejects business as usual and calls on governments and stakeholders to take a new path – one that prioritizes and implements an integrated Safe System approach that squarely positions road safety as a key driver of sustainable development. It also calls for actions that help the world hit the target of a 50% reduction in the number of road traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2030.