The Vietnam march signalled the start of the next phase of campaigning ahead of the first ever UN global governmental conference on road safety, to be held in 2009 in Moscow, to tackle this rapidly growing epidemic.

At a high profile event at the Reunification Palace in Ho Chi Minh, organised by the Asia Injury Prevention (AIP) Foundation to promote helmet-wearing, Yeoh cited Vietnam's progress in improving road safety as an example of the kind of action needed globally to reduce road deaths in the coming decade.

She said: “Today, tomorrow and every day, we will see at least 2,000 young children killed or seriously injured on the world's roads. This is unacceptable, preventable and we have to stop it. We have the vaccines for this disease: helmets, seatbelts, speed enforcement, safe road design. We just need to use them. Our call for a Decade of Action for Road Safety between 2010 and 2020 will focus attention on what can be achieved if the political will is there.”

The Make Roads Safe campaign is calling on governments attending the UN Conference to support a Decade of Action for Road Safety 2010-2020, modelled on the current UN Decade to Roll Back Malaria, in a bid to prevent the worst predictions of road deaths and injuries. Already 1.3 million people are killed on the world's roads each year, a toll set to increase to 2.4 million by 2030 according to World Health Organisation predictions.

Yeoh led the 2,000 children in Make Roads Safe t-shirts and motorcycle helmets on a 'March for Road Safety' along a main avenue of Ho Chi Minh. The march, organised by the AIP Foundation and the Make Roads Safe campaign, was also supported by representatives of the Vietnamese government, WHO, the Danish Ambassador, the Australian Consul General and a senior official from the US embassy. It attracted widespread media coverage around the world.

Meanwhile, in India, Monty Python star and BBC documentary maker Michael Palin gave his high profile support and called for the Decade of Action.

Signing up to the campaign's 'Call for a Decade of Action for Road Safety', he said: “I think to make road safety a priority as the Make Roads Safe campaign and others are doing is the only way forward. Anyone who has seen or had any experience of a child who has been disfigured, let alone killed, in an accident or seen anybody else damaged in an accident would obviously want this to happen.”

In an interview given to the Make Roads Safe campaign while filming his latest documentary marking the 20th anniversary of the BBC's 'Around the World in 80 Days', Palin stressed the urgent need to address road safety.

“What I have noticed in just the 20 years that I have been travelling is the enormous growth in the numbers of cars. I have found everywhere we've been that the motor car and the arrival of the motor car have made a great difference in a very short time. In every country people want to have access to cars, that's just a fact of life. Every community anywhere in the world I've been to wants to have a car and the problem is that a lot of people who have cars are not aware of the damage they can do, the roads are not always made safe, it's just 'here you are, you've got your car, go for it.”

“We need a Decade of Action to educate people and to reduce the number of casualties and the number of deaths. We need a decade to deal with this problem, we have got the experience; we have got the technology; we have got the skills. We just need governments around the world to realise what they have got to do and to put in the money and the initiatives and to give their backing.”