The claim made by Professor Ian Roberts that the FIA Foundation is part of an attempted "corporate capture" of road safety by the automobile industry is false and absurd. The FIA Foundation has no relationship with automobile manufacturers whatsoever. It is entirely independent of industry and plays a leading role in promoting higher motor vehicle safety standards worldwide. For example, we support the work of the award-winning independent Euro NCAP consumer crash tests, which is the only such programme in the world that includes pedestrian protection rating.
The Commission for Global Road Safety, under the chairmanship of Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, is urging recognition of road safety as an important issue for sustainable development. It is calling for a $300m action plan to support the implementation of the 2004 world report on road traffic injury prevention published by the WHO and the World Bank, which remains the primary source of well-designed road safety policies. The commission is also calling for a first ever global UN ministerial conference on road safety.
The commission is also concerned that each year the World Bank and other multilateral agencies are investing more than $4bn on roads in low- and middle-income countries without ensuring the highest levels of safety assessment and design. The importance of transport infrastructure to meet the millennium development goals was recognised by the G8 leaders at the Gleneagles Summit in 2005 and as a result aid for roads will increase through initiatives such as the Africa Infrastructure Consortium. However, the key question is will new roads in Africa increase exposure of children and pedestrians to traffic moving at higher speeds? We fervently hope not and that is why we are campaigning for safer road design that will better protect vulnerable road users. The commission has recommended that a minimum of 10% of all road projects be devoted to safety countermeasures.
The commission has 12 members coming from the G8 countries, Costa Rica, Kenya, India and Oman. They include a leading economist, a medical professor, a minister of transport, a head of road traffic police, a UN diplomat, a public health specialist, a road safety NGO, a former CEO of a tyre company and just one representative of a motor vehicle manufacturer. It is true that three members have links to their national automobile clubs.
The Make Roads Safe report, published last year by the commission, was supported by an Editorial Advisory Board that included the lead road safety experts of the WHO, the World Bank, the OECD, and the UN. All endorsed the report. The main purpose of the Make Roads Safe report has been to push policy makers on their resource commitment to road safety. For example at the moment, the UK Department for International Development spending on road safety has fallen from just £300,000 in 2001 to a paltry £126,000 in 2006, from a total aid budget of £4bn.
Professor Roberts also tries to link formula one with the allegation of so-called "corporate capture". This is also entirely false. The FIA Foundation was established as an independent charity with a $300m gift from the FIA, the non-profit association of automobile clubs and the governing body of motor sport. The donation came from the sale of its interest in the television rights to formula one. So in fact the sport has generated a remarkable charitable donation, which the FIA Foundation is now using to promote road safety and also the environment. We support, for example, the UN environment programme's campaign for a global ban on unleaded fuel by 2008 and the switch to low-sulphur fuels that are required for new emission control technologies.
Today there are 600m motor vehicles on the planet. This number is forecast to double by 2020. We can debate forever whether such an increase is sustainable or how to prevent it. I suspect that telling Africans, Indians and the Chinese that they should not have similar transport choices to our own will not be effective. The FIA Foundation's response to this challenge is to try to help ensure that growing levels of motorisation are much safer and more environmentally sustainable than before. This is our own agenda and not one determined, as Professor Roberts suggests, by any corporate or commercial interests.
