DUBAI:
The Emirates Motor Sports Federation (EMSF) was witness to an historic
UN General Assembly debate on global road safety where it was resolved
to convene a first-ever global conference on the issue in 2009.
The EMSF delegation consisting of Vice Chairman Hamad Al Mazrouei and
Director of Marketing and Business Development Roshanara Sait were
invited as observers by the Permanent Mission of Oman to the United
Nations to attend the 62nd United Nations General Assembly session held
on March 31 at the UN Headquarters in New York.
The UN Conference on road safety, with participation at least at
Ministerial level, will be held in the Russian Federation in 2009, a
decision that marks a major victory for the Make Roads Safe campaign
which has advocated for such a governmental meeting.
Lord Robertson, Chairman of the Commission for Global Road Safety,
which first proposed a global Ministerial Conference in its Make Roads
Safe report of 2006, addressed the UN General Assembly on March 31 and
is now scheduled to meet with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to
discuss the global road safety crisis at a later date.
During the General Assembly session, the UN heard that road deaths are
now the number one killer of young people aged 10-24 worldwide.
Overall, each year more than 1.2 million people are killed and 50
million injured. The latest forecasts show that unless action is taken,
more than 20 million lives could be lost from 2000-2015, with a
doubling of the annual death rate by 2030.
The Make Roads Safe campaign will be promoting a strong agenda for action to the UN Ministerial conference, including:
• Calling on the international community to fund, at minimum, a
10-year, $300 million, action plan to increase road safety capacity in
middle and low income countries;
• To ensure that 10% of road infrastructure budgets funded by international donors should be earmarked for safety.
Speaking from New York after witnessing the historic session Mr.
Mazrouei said he was heartened to note that the UN had finally resolved
to convene the much-needed global conference on road safety, an issue
that also tops the EMSF’s regional agenda in the Gulf.
Mr. Mazrouei pointed out that the EMSF has been in the forefront of
promoting safe driving in the UAE for over a decade with such campaigns
as the popular RoadStar, which is held twice a year in Dubai with plans
now to also launch the campaign in Abu Dhabi.
Apart from RoadStar, the EMSF had launched a major first in the Gulf
region when it held a road safety campaign in Dubai schools in mid-2006
in association with Dubai Police and major car manufacturer Porsche,
with plans on the drawing board to set up a permanent Children’s
Traffic City in Dubai.
In March 2006 the EMSF in association with Dubai Police conducted a
month-long Global Road Safety campaign titled ‘Think Before You Drive,’
an initiative of Bridgestone Corporation and the FIA Foundation.
In order to compliment these efforts on a more permanent basis, the
EMSF has also published the first edition of its Safe Driving Handbook
in conjunction with Dubai Police. The handbook, modeled largely on the
British roadways system, has proved so popular with road users in the
UAE that the EMSF now intends to release an updated version in the near
future.
As a mark of appreciation for their relentless efforts to secure the UN
conference on road safety Mr. Mazrouei presented mementos to Mr. David
Ward, Director General, FIA Foundation, and Secretary of the Commission
for Global Road Safety, and Mr. Mark L. Rosenberg, MD MPP, Director of
The Global Road Safety Forum following the UN General Assembly debate.
In the build-up to the March 31 General Assembly debate, the Global
Road Safety Forum, its worldwide affiliates and such organizations as
the World Health Organization, the Economic and Social Commission of
Western Asia and Global Road Safety Partnership had launched a
signature campaign to drum-up support for the UN Ministerial Conference.
More than a million people signed the Make Roads Safe petition, which
was handed in to the UN ahead of the General Assembly debate.
