Roads have stories! Let’s work together to make sure those stories are happy ones. It’s the selected slogan for #WDoR2018
The World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims (WDR) is commemorated on the third Sunday of November each year – to remember the many millions killed and injured on the world’s roads, together with their families, friends and many others who are also affected. It is also a Day on which we thank the emergency services and reflect on the tremendous burden and cost of this daily continuing disaster to families, communities and countries, and on ways to halt it.
Road deaths and injuries are sudden, violent, traumatic events. Their impact is long-lasting, often permanent. Each year, millions of newly injured and bereaved people from every corner of the world are added to the countless millions who already suffer. The cumulative toll is truly tremendous.
The grief and distress experienced by this huge number of people is all the greater because many of the victims are young, because many of the crashes could and should have been prevented and because governments’ and society’s response to road death and injury and to bereaved and injured victims is often inadequate, unsympathetic, and inappropriate to a loss of life or quality of life.
This special Remembrance Day is therefore intended to respond to the great need of road crash victims for public recognition of their loss and suffering. It has also become an important tool for governments and those who work to prevent crashes or respond to the aftermath, since it offers the opportunity to demonstrate the enormous scale and impact of road deaths and injuries and the urgent need for action.
Many varied commemorative events are held on each World Day, or on the days before or after.
The World Day has a long history:
· From 1995, road victim organisations under the umbrella of the European Federation of Road Traffic Victims (FEVR) observed this Day together – first as European Day of Remembrance, but soon as World Day when NGOs from Africa, South America and Asia, who were associated members of FEVR, joined.
Therefore FEVR is the creator and first owner of the World Day of Remembrance. Already from 2000, the Pope and other religious leaders remembered road victims worldwide on the 3rd Sunday of November, calling it ‘World Day’.
· 10 years later – on 26th October 2005 – the World Day was adopted by the UN General Assembly as “the appropriate acknowledgement for victims of road traffic crashes and their families”.
The best way to honour the memory of those who have suffered on the world’s roads would be for governments to fulfil the commitments they made at the start of the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020 before it is too late. For WDoR 2018 RSP collaborated with other road safety stakeholders to show how much important is working in this area. We designed different posters and slogans to raise the public awareness and tell everybody that the crash scene is just the beginning of a sad story. Some examples were as below:
- Maryam’s father died in a crash when opposing car driver was using his mobile phone while driving and caused a head-on accident. Maryam is only 5 and she’s completely confused about what people do these days. Her mom says “Daddy” is on a long journey towards paradise and it’s Maryam’s new task to pay more attention to his new born brother. She hopes dad not to forget about buying the new doll as he promised just before leaving home!
- Roads Have Stories! Lots of sad stories about crashes! Sad story of a family that lost their breadwinner! Sad story of children who learned continue living without parents!Sad story of a mother who lost her beautiful daughter and she’s painful everyday! Sad story of a lover’s arms without beloved! Sad story of …….
- Road crashes are painful and tragic! And they are more suffering when we miss our social capitals in these preventable accidents!
