Technology and infrastructure risk → Transport safety
The leading cause of death for people aged 5 to 29, and almost entirely preventable by design rather than by behaviour. The engineering is known and the political will is not.
What would have to be true
| Milestone | Baseline | Latest | Target | By | Progress | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Halve road traffic deaths (Sustainable Development Goal 3.6) annual deaths | 1,250,000 deaths | 1,190,000 deaths | 625,000 deaths | 2030 | 10% | offtrack |
Progress is the distance travelled from baseline to target, not the share of the target reached. A milestone that began near its goal has not made 90 per cent of the progress.
What works, and what you can do
Support or start a local campaign for lower speed limits on residential and school streets.
Survival in a collision falls off a cliff above roughly 30 km/h, so the limit is doing most of the work. trial
Effort a few hours a month · Cost none
Where you set or influence policy, require designs that assume human error rather than punishing it.
Countries that adopted this approach have cut deaths while traffic volume rose. observational
Effort sustained · Cost capital budget