108. The representative of the World Health Organization (WHO) presented WP.29-171-10, the WHO Discussion Paper “Developing voluntary global performance targets for road safety risk factors and service delivery mechanisms”, to the World Forum. The document proposes a set of voluntary global performance targets for the prevention of road traffic injuries and fatalities, as well as the indicators to assess their achievement for UN member States consideration. She emphasized that the motivation for the activities under this initiative is to complement and support the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 3.6.
109. The representative of the WHO described the consultation process leading up to the current version of the candidate global targets and indicators as well as the upcoming phases of consultation in advance of their finalization in November 2017. She explained that the five core areas under which targets are developed reflect the five pillars of the Global Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020, including pillar three, Safer Vehicles. She invited the World Forum to provide comments and feedback to the current formulation of this target, namely that one-hundred per cent of new vehicles meet eight identified priority standards (based on UN Regulations or equivalent recognized national standards). She requested representatives of the World Forum to contact the WHO and provide their comments via e-mail, roadsafetytarget@who.int, by the end of April 2017.
110. The Chair of the World Forum thanked the representative of the WHO for presenting the organisation’s discussion paper. He proposed that the accession to global technical regulations of the 1998 Agreement be considered as an indicator in addition to the eight UN Regulations already covered in the presented WHO discussion paper. He underlined that some formulations used in the discussion paper in proposing indicators and justifications for the target of reducing the proportion of “helmetless” motorcycle riders, developed under pillar 4 Safer Road Users, are vague. He proposed referencing the application of specific motorcycle helmet standards as an indicator that motorcycle helmet legislation meets best practices, namely the standards defined in UN Regulation No. 22.
111. The Chair of the World Forum reminded that WP.29 is an intergovernmental body and that designating the World Forum as “data source” for compilation of indicators towards countries achieving the objective of the target formulated as Safer Vehicles in the WHO Discussion Paper is inaccurate.
112. Vice-Chairman of WP.29 also thanked WHO for the presentation and stressed that new UN Regulation on Emergency call system developing now under chairmanship of the Russian Federation will play very important role in live saving at road accidents. He reminded that corresponding requirements already exist in EuroAsian Economical Union from 2015 and will enter into force in EU in March of 2018.