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Since the adoption of the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims, pursuant to General Assembly resolution 60/5, the observance has spread to a growing number of countries on every continent.

The Day has become an important tool in global efforts to reduce road casualties. It offers an opportunity for drawing attention to the scale of emotional and economic devastation caused by road crashes and for giving recognition to the suffering of road crash victims and the work of support and rescue services. The objectives of the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims are to provide a platform for road traffic victims and their families to:

• remember all people killed and seriously injured on the roads;
• acknowledge the crucial work of the emergency services;
• draw attention to the generally trivial legal response to culpable road deaths and injuries
• advocate for better support for road traffic victims and victim families;
• promote evidence-based actions to prevent and eventually stop further road traffic deaths and injuries.

A dedicated website was launched to make the Day more widely known and to link countries through sharing common objectives and the remembrance of people killed and injured in crashes. In September 2020, the UN General Assembly adopted resolution A/RES/74/299 “Improving global road safety”, proclaiming the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021-2030, with the ambitious target of preventing at least 50% of road traffic deaths and injuries by 2030. WHO and the UN regional commissions, in cooperation with other partners in the UN Road Safety Collaboration, have developed a Global Plan for the Decade of Action. Also, to highlight the plight of children on the world’s roads and generate action to better ensure their safety, the UN organizes the Global Road Safety Week.