Bringing More Attention To A Killer Of Over A Million People Each Year

Now, really trying to prevent such injuries was kind of a road not taken in many countries before Bloomberg Philanthropies started its road safety work back in 2007 with a $9 million pilot program. Despite road traffic crashes being among the top 10 killers worldwide, this vast global health problem wasn’t getting nearly the requisite attention.

Bloomberg Philanthropies has since sought to change all that by investing a total of over $500 million through several phases of work that have already spanned nearly two decades.

But as Bloomberg, the founder of Bloomberg L.P. and Bloomberg Philanthropies, has emphasized, it is still the case that “road crashes don’t receive enough attention, even though they take a staggering toll on human life and health — and so many of the injuries and deaths are preventable.”

For example, how many people know that road traffic crashes claim around 1.19 million lives and injure 20 to 50 million more people each year around the world, according to the World Health Organization’s Global Status Report on Road Safety 2023? And how many people realize that road traffic crashes cost most countries 3% of their gross domestic product?

That GDP factoid is because road traffic crashes occur “particularly among people of the most productive ages, young adults,” explained Kelly Henning, M.D., who’s led the Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Public Health program since its inception in 2007. “And that’s a very important piece for the economies of the countries where we’re working.” If you lose someone before he or she reaches 30 years of age, that’s potentially decades of lost productivity to a country and its sectors.

The Road Safety Initiative Has Helped Pass 190 National, State And City Policies

If you’ve noticed, I haven’t used the word “accident” when mentioning road crashes and traffic injuries. That’s not by accident. “I think the biggest misconception is that road crash deaths are accidents. They’re not accidents. They’re actually preventable events,” Henning told me. “And we know what those interventions are that can lead to the prevention of road crashes, road crash deaths. That’s what we really need to work with governments and others on the ground in countries, to promote and put such interventions in place.”

Bloomberg Philanthropies provided me with stats as to what the Initiative for Global Road Safety has already done so far. This has included working with governments in different countries to pass 190 national, state and city policies, augmenting safety features in 135 car models, redesigning over 2,400 dangerous intersections and training close to 80,000 traffic police across 22 countries. Henning estimated that all of this has already saved nearly 900,000 lives.

Specific examples of policies passed have ranged from Colombia and Uganda reducing speed limits to Uganda lowering the legal blood alcohol concentrations to Ethiopia mandating seat-belt use to Viet Nam in 2024 passing two laws that helped establish a legal foundation for enforcing road traffic rules and safety. And among these countries, there are now three designated mentor cities — Bogota in Colombia, Addis Ababa in Ethiopia and Ho Chi Minh City in Viet Nam. These are cities that can now serve as models for other cities based on all that they’ve accomplished to date.

For example, Bogota won the inaugural Bloomberg Philanthropies Award for Excellence in Road Safety in June 2024 for what was described as the best-in-class road infrastructure. It also received the Gold Award in the Bloomberg Philanthropies Initiative for Global Road Safety Speed Challenge in August 2025. The city’s accomplishments have included training 4.3K+ enforcement officers agents, redesigning nearly 300 intersections and running 15 media campaigns on road safety.

And for bicycle riders who are “two tired” of navigating through dangerous roads, there’s been the Bloomberg Initiative for Cycling Infrastructure. This initiative has had a competitive grant program since 2022 that’s resulted in over 200 miles of cycling facilities being built across 10 different cities. Bloomberg Philanthropies estimated that this has prevented around 8,000 crashes and will reduce CO2 emissions by 97,000 tons by 2040.

The Goal Of The New $350 Million Investment Is To Save 1 Million More Lives Over The Next Five Years

Such successes have motivated Bloomberg Philanthropies to continue this road trip, so to speak, that’s now included a total investment of $865 million to date. As Bloomberg, who is also the WHO Global Ambassador for Noncommunicable Diseases and Injuries, stated about the newly committed $350 million, "This major new investment will expand and accelerate the lifesaving progress we’ve made bringing proven interventions to streets around the world.” The stated goal is to save 1 million additional lives over the next five years.

Part of this next phase will be keeping on keeping on what the initiative has been doing but in more cities and countries — 30 and 13, respectively, to be exact. These will range from locations in South America like Buenos Aires and Córdoba in Argentina to those in Central America like Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic to those in South Asia like Chittagong (Chattogram) and Dhaka North in Bangladesh to those in Southeast Asia like Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia to those in Africa like Mombasa and Nairobi in Kenya. The initiative will not only tackle known risk factors like dangerous speeding which is a factor in half of crashes but also evaluate new risk factors such as cell phone usage while driving. There are also going to be efforts to spur more government investment in public transit like buses.

The initiative will also try to break a vicious cycle of sorts — bicyclists not having safer infrastructures within which to ride. Bloomberg, who was a three-term mayor of New York City as well, emphasized, “The important role that improved cycling infrastructure can play." The plan is to continue putting in new and improved bike lanes consistent with Global Designing Cities Initiative, launch a global competition that will choose 25 cities to get training and technical assistance on designing safe and inclusive cycling infrastructure and create what’s described as the world’s first comprehensive guide for safe cycling infrastructure.

The road to further reducing road traffic injuries and deaths will be by no means easy. It will require continued cooperation and commitment by national, state and local governments. But Henning added that there has been political will in all the countries that have worked in to do all of this. In other words, governments have been far from too chicken to cross this road.