Join The Long Short Walk

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I just learned of a very cool program called The Long Short Walk. It is:

The Long Short Walk is a global campaign advocating for safe for roads for all. To achieve this, we are calling for road safety to be included in the next UN ‘Sustainable Development Goals’. In September world leaders will meet in New York to begin the process of agreeing these new post-2015 goals. Make your voice heard!

Around 1/4 of of the 1.3 Million people killed on the roads annually are pedestrians, many kids.

That's a fact from their homepage. It makes me want to go nuts.

What they are going to do is take the videos, photos submitted and make a huge compiled video to show.

There are many ways to get involved such as:

HOW TO TAKE PART:

First, take a walk. It can be your walk to school or work, your favourite walk, or even just a stroll to the corner shop. If you have a dangerous road or junction nearby we'd be interested to see it. We'll upload these short walks online and combine them into one Long Walk, providing a snapshot of streets and journeys all across the world.

  • The best way to get them direct to the campaign is via Flickr, but if you're not doing it this way make sure you use the campaign hastags so we can pull everything together.
  • Download the Long Short Walk signboards and use them on your walk to call for action. Editable boards are available (Requires Adobe InDesign software) – do feel free to add your own organisation’s logo if you want.

So join our campaign for sustainable change and use your own two feet to walk for safe roads for all!

Make Roads Safe is a non-profit started in 2006.

You can register your own walk here. I am going to register my son's walk to school. It doesn't matter how big or small you make. Take a photo and upload it to their Flick account.

The hashtag to use is #walksafe.

For more information visit their website.

I think I could copy and paste the whole site it's just so wonderful. Here is a bit more:

Road Traffic Injuries: A Global Epidemic

Every 6 seconds someone is killed or seriously injured on the world’s roads. With 1.3 million road deaths each year this is a global epidemic comparable to Malaria or Tuberculosis. And like those killer diseases, road crashes prey on the young, the poor and the vulnerable. Yet by comparison to other global killers, road injury is utterly neglected.

Causing Poverty

Nine in ten road deaths and injuries are in developing countries. The economic cost to these countries is estimated by the World Bank at up to US $100 billion a year (equivalent to all annual overseas aid from OECD countries). Research in India and Bangladesh has shown that at least half of families affected by a road death or serious injury fall below the poverty line. The poorest communities are the worst affected, in rich countries and developing countries alike. Pedestrians, cyclists and other vulnerable road users are the majority of those killed and injured.

South African school children attempt to cross a busy road

Road crashes are the leading global cause of death for young people aged 10-24

Child Killer

Road crashes are the leading global cause of death for young people aged 10-24, and by 2015 are predicted to be the leading cause of premature death and disability for children in developing countries aged five and above. Already, according to Unicef and the WHO, 260,000 children die and another 10 million are injured in road crashes every year.

A Neglected Issue

The international community has failed to respond to this epidemic. Global road safety is largely ignored and neglected by politicians. This neglect means that developing countries are unable to receive the financial support and technical advice they need to improve road safety in their countries. And while road deaths in the rich world are falling, deaths in the developing world are rising fast.