Globally, road traffic incidents and collisions claim roughly 1.3 million, and affect a further 50 million, lives each year. These incidents and collisions are the consequence of careless, ignorant and/or negligent decision making. Although the motivating factors of these actions may differ with intent, the resulting tragedies are no less significant and represent an equal disregard for responsible behaviour. The ramifications of these tragedies resonate through our social, natural and economic environments, causing avoidable and unnecessary fiscal and societal damage.
As a reaction to the road traffic safety pandemic, March 2010 saw the United Nations General Assembly proclaim the period
2011-2020 as the Decade for Action for Road Safety. The intention of this proclamation was to commit to efforts to stabilise and reduce the forecast level of road traffic fatalities around the world. In support of this concept, the Global Plan for the Decade of Action for Road Safety was published in 2011, identifying five elements to contribute to the success of the initiative, namely:
- Road Safety Management;
- Safer Roads and Mobility;
- Safer Vehicles;
- Safer Road Users; and
- Post-crash response.
In 2012, the International Organisation of Standardisation released a potential solution to address the five components of
“the plan”, the ISO 39001 standard.