Global Road Safety Campaign Hits UN
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Over the summer the issue of global traffic fatalities began to move up the media agenda cycle in the US. This prompted blog discussions over the social construction of “problems,” especially why we care so much about terrorism which kills almost no one, and so little about traffic accidents, which though decreasing in the US remain, according to the World Health Organization, the third most frequent cause of death globally for individuals between the ages of 5 and 44 – and the top killer of people between 15-29.
As I’m kicking off my class in Global Agenda-Setting this semester, I’m delighted to see an emerging campaign on precisely this issue taking shape and beginning to impact United Nations discourse and practice. My students and I will be watching this campaign – and others – closely to see to what extent the activists goals are translated by governments into norms that might actually reduce traffic mortality worldwide.