Road safety is no accident: a call for global action.

This month WHO is taking a giant leap forward in global public health in the field of road traffic injuries, with two major events to promote action for saving lives and preventing morbidity. The first is World Health Day on 7 April 2004 with the theme “Road safety is no accident” (1). This simple message is designed to encourage governments, civil society and other stakeholders to recognize that death and disability on roads are predictable and preventable and require concerted efforts by different sectors of society. The second is the World report on road traffic injury prevention, the first global review of the magnitude, determinants and risk factors of road traffic injuries, which presents potential strategies to reduce the burden of death and disability caused by such injuries (2). These two events constitute an active engagement by the global public health community in assuming ownership of a problem in which other sectors have been playing their roles. They represent the beginning of a process that will take sustained effort, financial commitment, multisectoral collaboration and a change in the mindset of medical and public health professionals. The last factor is critical, since the field of road traffic injury prevention is replete with myths and false assumptions that must be exploded. Myth: Road traffic injuries are not a public health problem. Infectious diseases and, to a lesser extent, chronic conditions have been the focus of traditional public health efforts in lowand middleincome countries, while road traffic injury prevention has been considered the responsibility of the transport, police, and legal sectors. There are more than a million deaths each year from road traffic injuries around the world; millions more suffer morbidity and long-term disability; and road traffic injuries impact on the most productive members of a society and result in large-scale economic losses for a country. These are all strong reasons for urgent and sustained public health involvement in their prevention and control (3, 4). Road safety is no accident: a call for global action Adnan A. Hyder1