| Schumacher said: “Unless action is taken, global road deaths are forecast to double by 2020. Most of these deaths happen in developing countries. Worst affected are vulnerable road users, children, pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists.
“In the industrialised countries, our road casualties have been falling for three decades…yet, on the streets of South East Asia, South America and Africa, we are facing an avoidable epidemic of death and injury on the road. Today, road crashes kill on the scale of malaria or tuberculosis, yet the international community has not woken up to this horrific waste of life.”
Since retiring from the sport last year Schumacher has devoted much of his time to campaigning for road safety. He decided to become involved in the Make Roads Safe campaign, led by the FIA and FIA Foundation, as he could see the need to take immediate action to cut deaths and injuries worldwide.
“In my racing career, I survived some very high-speed impacts,” Schumacher added. “I am still alive today because the sport's governing body designed a system where safety is the prime consideration, where the car, the track and the rules work together to try to ensure that the inevitable crashes will not be fatal. This "Vision Zero" approach may sound like science fiction, but increasingly it guides the policies of those countries with the most effective road safety performance in the world.”
“In the end, it comes down to how many road fatalities we are prepared to tolerate. And, at the moment, the answer from the international community seems to be that we should tolerate one death every 30 seconds. There is a better alternative and that is to begin to take action to make roads safe.”
Schumacher was in London on 23 April to launch the Make Roads Safe campaign which was at the forefront of the UN week. He held a series of high profile media interviews with, amongst others, the BBC, ITN and Sky News.
After a mid-morning photo call with 20 London school children, Schumacher took centre stage with FIA President Max Mosley, UK Road Safety Minister Stephen Ladyman, Global Road Safety Commission chairman Lord Robertson and Prince Michael of Kent.
Schumacher and Prince Michael handed out prizes to three UK school children who had beaten off competition from hundreds of other pupils around the country to write a road safety poem. Each of the three children – from Telford, Liverpool and Dumbarton in Scotland – received a signed T-shirt and a certificate from the Formula 1 champion and Prince Michael.
After the prize giving, hundreds of people signed their names on a 7ft wall to launch the petition for road safety. Their names will be added to the 1.2 million expected to support the petition online.
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