Remarks by H.E. Annalena Baerbock
President of the 80th Session of the United Nations General Assembly
at the opening segment of the high-level meeting
on improving global road safety
GA Hall, Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ HQ, New York
20 July 2026
[As Delivered]
Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Welcome to this High-Level Meeting of the General Assembly on Global Road Safety.
Obviously, since you are all here, it means that each of you had to navigate the streets of Manhattan to reach First Avenue. Whether you came by car, by bike, or simply walked, you were nonetheless part of the complex choreography of New York’s traffic system.
And while I am sure you were paying attention to your surroundings ¨C at least I hope ¨C it is reassuring for each of us that the systems required to keep that environment operating smoothly and safely are in place. We trust that there are rules and standards, laws and policies that make navigating roads possible, whether here in New York, in New Delhi or in Nigeria.
Most of the time, we barely think about those systems. We simply assume they will work. Traffic lights turning from red to green, sometimes yellow in some parts of the world. But while most journeys end safely, far too many do not.
When I was a child, I personally remember my mother telling me about how her sister, my aunt, had died. It had been raining and she ran to the store to buy a ruler. She was hit by a tram when she was still a child.
She died before I was born, so I never mourned her personally. But the legacy of that loss lingered. It shaped my grandparents, it shaped my mother, and it became one of those stories parents tell their children, hoping they might take just a little more care when they just go out to buy a ruler.
I forgot about that story, but I thought about it just last month, here in the General Assembly, during our Multistakeholder Hearing on Road Safety.
Because one of the participants, Ms. Viviam Perrone, spoke about losing her own child, her son Kevin, twenty-four years ago in Argentina. She described what she called the “never-ending ripples of devastation”, and how she continues to carry “his agonizing absence” in her heart.
Listening to her, I think all of us who were in the room, were reminded that while every road fatality is recorded as a statistic, every single one leaves behind a family whose lives are never quite the same again.
Some of you may nevertheless be? asking: well, why is this the United Nations focused on road safety? Aren’t there wars that need to be addressed? Is this really a priority of the Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ?
And frankly speaking this question is understandable and that is why we have to speak about it. Because peace and security is for sure one of our most essential pillars. But it is not the only one. If we look at the Charter, as we did a few weeks ago, our responsibility is also to protect lives on a daily basis, to protect health and to promote well-being.
And the stark reality, as highlighted by the Special Envoy, is that road traffic crashes have become a silent pandemic.
- Every year more than 1.2 million people are killed on roads.
- And another 50 million are injured.
Think about these numbers. That is more than the number killed in direct conflict. More than the number of people murdered. More than the number who die from malaria.
That means, every twenty-four seconds, another person loses their life on¡ªor because of¡ªour roads and highways.
Since I began speaking, at least half a dozen more families, like Viviam¡¯s, have received news that will change their lives forever.
The tragedy is not simply the scale of these losses. The tragedy is also the fact that, different than other deadly global challenges ¨C so many of them are entirely preventable.
Therefore, it¡¯s so important to raise road safety also right here in this Hall¡ especially, where for once, we are dealing with an issue far from contentious.
As for all the issues we discuss in this hall, and for all the divisions that can sometimes arise, I guess nobody is against the desire to keep our families, the ones we love, safe while going to work or to school.
As I also suspect there are very few people in this Hall who have not been touched by a similar story, by this silent pandemic, as Ms. Viviam Perrone.
Whether it was a family member, a friend or a neighbour, most of us know someone whose life changed forever because a journey that should have ended safely did not.
None of us want our children playing beside dangerous roads.
None of us want to drive cars that fail basic safety standards.
None of us want to see pedestrians, cyclists or motorists suffer because of poor infrastructure or preventable negligence.
And none of us ¨C speaking as a woman ¨C can understand why airbags that are supposed to protect our bodies are designed for men, so they are actually hurting many female drivers in car crashes.
The Progress Declaration before us, shepherded by our esteemed co-facilitators, Ambassador Aida Kasymalieva of Kyrgyzstan and Ambassador Peter Hul¨¦nyi of Slovakia, offers practical recommendations that can make a real difference.
It calls for stronger national leadership on road safety, in their own sovereignty but in the understanding of being better together. Better by collecting data and using data together. Better in ensuring safer roads and vehicles. In improved post-crash response. And in greater investment in road safety education.
There is nothing contentious about any of this.
So let us capitalize on this moment of unity and this rare opportunity for consensus.
Let us commit to this Declaration and, more importantly, to delivering on its forty-eight recommendations.
Not only in this Hall, but out there.
On 42nd Street. In New Delhi. In Nigeria.
In every city, big or small. In every community.
Let us do it for ourselves, and for those we love. For our children on their way to school. And for parents like Viviam Perrone, who continue to carry the absence of a child every single day.
I thank you.
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