Seminar on Road Safety Interventions: Evidence of What Works and What Does Not Work

Road traffic crashes result in an estimated 1.35 million deaths and 50 million injuries worldwide per year with over 90 percent of these occurring in Low-Middle Income Countries (LMICs). Aside from the obvious pain and suffering this inflicts on individuals, their families, friends and communities, these deaths and injuries also place a large financial burden particularly on LMICs, by slowing economic growth.

The scale of the current response to this continuing crisis does not match the size of the problem. In addition, limited road safety resources are often expended on ineffective or suboptimal interventions. While road safety knowledge has improved over recent decades, there is still a need to improve decision-making when selecting and applying effective evidence-based road safety interventions. Effective interventions are those that prevent and reduce fatal and serious injuries.

This webinar focused on a recently developed guide by the World Bank's Global Road Safety Facility (GRSF) “What Works and What Does Not Work” in road safety in response to the critical need for effective evidence-based road safety interventions. Interventions covering each of the Safe System pillars (road safety management, safe roads, safe speeds, safe vehicles, safe road users, and post-crash care) will be discussed with highlights on beneficial and non-beneficial interventions. The relevance and role of this guide in the World Bank operational projects, as well as operations of other Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs), and local, sub-national, national governments and other stakeholders were discussed with the commencement of the 2nd Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021-2030.