Every year an estimated 1.2 million people are killed and up to 50 million more people are injured or disabled on the world’s roads. A future accident toll will likely see a great increase, driven by the world trend of rapid motorization growth. World Bank projections indicate that unless major action is taken, global road fatalities will increase by more than 66 percent between the years 2000 and 2020. By 2020, road deaths and injuries are predicted to be the third leading contributor to the global burden of disease and injury. 
Low and middle-income countries, which already bear about 90 percent of the current burden of road deaths and injuries, are expected to experience the greatest growth in casualty rates between 2000 and 2020. Fatalities are predicted to increase by more than 80 percent in low and middle income countries, but decrease by nearly 30 percent in high-income countries. A large proportion of crash victims will continue to be the more vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and cyclists. The scale of the road traffic safety epidemic is huge. In China alone some 100,000 people are killed each year, and some 5.5 million injured, with some estimates placing the numbers much higher. Experiences in developed countries over the past thirty years have demonstrated that the risks for road accidents can be substantially prevented. However, investment in road accident prevention in low and middle income countries is currently inadequate for meeting this growing public health concern; the implementation of cost-effective safety measures is not wide spread. For low and middle income countries, understanding, designing and operating the road system properly to compensate for human vulnerability and fallibility is particularly challenging due to the complexity and hazardous nature of the road transport system, as well as the fact that road safety is a shared responsibility by government, industry, nongovernmental organizations and people from various disciplines and communities. The framework for effective, multi-sector co-operation is often lacking. The transport sector in the East Asia and Pacific region is committed to addressing the road safety challenges in its client countries. Since early 1980s, road safety interventions have been incorporated as components of transport projects financed by the Bank throughout the region. Through policy dialogue, technical assistance, investment and program loans, various road safety measures and strategies were implemented to improve road safety in the region. However, the Bank’s approach of treating road safety operations as a minor sub-component of considerably larger road infrastructure projects, has demonstrated limitations in achieving effective safety outcomes. It is recognized that the region’s future progress for road safety interventions will depend on activities that have: clear strategic objectives for road safety in Bank’s interventions; performance management frameworks to achieve road safety targets;  coordination with national stakeholders or relevant line agencies beyond traditional Bank counterparts; and client countries coordinated road safety responsibility shared by different entities
Efforts are being made to explore the potential to move beyond the traditional project-based road safety interventions towards a stand-alone, multi-sector and result-focused approach, or the so-called 2nd generation road safety project. The first 2nd generation road safety project started in Vietnam in 2005. The opportunity to expand this approach to other countries in the region is now being explored.  News and Events:
April 2007 China Road Safety Project Design Study Workshop (upcoming)
Hubei Road Safety Training Center (GRSF grant, launching)
Joint Seminar for Road Safety, Beijing (December, 2006, presentation files available)
June 2006 China Road Safety Seminar, Beijing (power point presentation files) Projects and Programs:
China China Road Safety Study: Reviews of Past Experiences and Options for Future Progress (on-going, Terms of Reference, Inception Report available) 2005 Hubei Road Traffic Safety Report
Vietnam
Related Sites  Â World Bank Road Safety Website
 Global Road Safety Facility
 The World Report on Road Traffic Injury Prevention (5.6mb pdf)
 Global Road Safety Partnership
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