First UN Global Road Safety Week (23 - 29 April 2007)
The proposal to organize a Global Road Safety Week was first made by the Working Party on Road Traffic Safety (WP.1) of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) in March 2005. The WP.1 proposed to extend its road safety week concept, which had been limited to the UNECE region, to the global level. Furthermore, it proposed to hold the next one in 2007 rather than 2008 to sustain the momentum of international road safety activities started on World Health Day organized by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 7 April 2004. This was endorsed by the United Nations Road Safety Collaboration shortly after.
On 26 October 2005, the United Nations General Assembly officially expressed its support for the organization of a global road safety week in resolution A/RES/60/5 on Improving global road safety. The latter invites the United Nations Regional Commissions and the World Health Organization (WHO) to jointly organize the First United Nations Global Road Safety Week to serve as a platform for global and regional, but mainly national and local, activities to raise awareness about road safety issues.
The Week was modelled on previous road safety weeks organized by the Economic Commission for Europe and on World Health Day in 2004, which was devoted to “Safe Roads”.
The theme chosen for the First United Nations Road Safety Week was "young road users, including young drivers". Why young people in particular? Because as statistics clearly show, young people are overrepresented in road crashes. 18-24 year olds represent about 10% of the world’s population but 25% of those killed in crashes. However, while the focus of the Week was young road users and young drivers, it is expected that it will benefit road users of all ages.
The slogan chosen for the Week, was "Road Safety is No Accident" .