Road accidents kill someone every 24 seconds, with a total of 1.35 million traffic deaths around the world each year, the World Health Organization said Friday, demanding global action.
The number of fatalities annually has swelled by around 100,000 in just three years, with road accidents now the leading killer of children and young people between the ages of five and 29, the UN health agency said in a new report.
“These deaths are an unacceptable price to pay for mobility,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement.
“There is no excuse for inaction. This is a problem with proven solutions,” he said.
The WHO’s Global Status Report on Road Safety, based on data from 2016, showed that the situation is worsening.
In its last report, based on data from 2013, the number of road traffic deaths was estimated at 1.25 million annually.
Times higher there than in high income countries.