Global Road Safety Film Festival in Geneva

Statement by Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

20 February 2017

Greetings. I’m delighted to be here to support your work. This festival is about prevention – about changing behaviours and saving lives. I’m here because road safety is a human rights issue. People have a right to move around without fear of harm.

Road rage. Drunk driving. Texting at the wheel. Harrassment of women and girls. The message of the short films in today’s programmes is that all of us have a moral and legal duty to respect other people’s rights. Whether they’re funny, horrifying or plaintive, these movies tell us that every individual is a member of a community, and all of us have a duty of empathy and care.

Some of you here may have suffered the sudden, often devastating impact of road accidents caused by negligence or recklessness. You know that there can be no justification for considering that road accidents are just a random thing that happens. They result from negligence.

And that negligence extends well beyond the behaviour of individual drivers.  

States have an obligation to take reasonable steps to protect people’s rights to life and to personal security. That obligation includes investing in decent infrastructure such as public transport and roads. It includes the adequate regulation of safety standards and emergency services. And it includes prosecuting offenders.

This festival is about changing minds, and saving lives. These are films that can be deployed to drive change. We need to build on this work of heightening awareness to generate more thoughtful plans for road networks that are safe for all users; policies that enforce protection; and respectful and safe behaviour by all.

I thank all of you for standing up for road safety – and for standing up for human rights.