One of the most urgent issues of the epoch we live in is that of car accidents and death on the streets. For many reasons, from alcohol abuse to excessive speed, from banal distractions to the failure to comply with the highway code, everyday many people all over the world are involved in accidents, accidents that can cause injuries or even deaths.
It is more than necessary to take decisions to solve this problem, and it is necessary to find new methods to reduce the number of accidents. From the study of more severe rules to tighter controls, every day there are new ideas to solve the problem, which remains one of the first points in the agenda of many countries.
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Enrico Gelpi, president of ACI (Automobile club d'Italia) and vice-president of Federazione Internazionale dell'Automobile has recently pointed out that it is necessary to find strategies on an international level, which are essentially based on "the respect of the rules and self-awareness while driving". This is the core idea that has emerged from the meeting that has been organised in May on the occasion of the launch in Italy of the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020, a meeting that had been organised by ACI with the collaboration of the Italian Ministry of Health and Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport and which has also been attended by Ferruccio Fazio, Ministry of Health, Mario Valducci and Silvia Velo, President and vice-president of the Parliament Transportation Committee.
According to UN, the primary necessity is making a plan of intervention that must be recognised on an international level, so that the single Governments are persuaded to take measures that really can control the problem of road victims. Every day 3.500 people die all over the world, meaning that road accidents are the ninth cause of death in the world. According to the United Nations this situation might get even worse: if we do not take some measures, by 2030 road accidents might become the fifth cause of death, causing more victims than diseases like AIDS or cancers.
Besides being a social plague, road accidents also have negative consequences as far as economy is concerned: road accidents do not only cause many victims and injured every year, they coast a lot also from an economic point of view, as they represent the 3% of world GDP, which corresponds to 500 billion American dollars a year.
Last but not least, making streets safer and improve the road system does not only mean to reduce the number of victims and the coasts deriving from car accidents, it also means to reduce traffic jam and congestions, an element that should not be underestimate, as road transport is responsible for 14% of greenhouse gases.
