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Learn more about the Speed Vaccine and how you can help deliver it

A child hit by a car at 20 miles an hour (30 km/h) can survive. Hit at 50mph (80km/h), most will die.

And every day 3000 children are killed or seriously injured on the world’s roads. By failing to tackle vehicle speed, we’re failing to protect our young.

Reducing speed by design on roads where kids live, and where they walk or cycle to school, is urgent. This is a highly cost effective public health intervention, enabling exercise, reducing vehicle emissions. A proven area-wide ‘vaccine’ against serious injury. Low speeds save lives.

Last year governments and city mayors worldwide adopted the New Urban Agenda, calling for ‘a safe and healthy journey to school for every child as a priority’. Now it is time to honor that commitment, and to begin in a practical way, by reducing and enforcing traffic speeds to a level safe for children everywhere, prioritising low speed zones in residential areas and near schools.

Every child deserves the chance to live. Every journey they make must be safe. Accelerate action now to #SlowDown.

Campaign Supported by

President Jimmy Carter & Rosalynn Carter, The Carter Center  •  Michael R. Bloomberg, WHO Global Ambassador for Non-Communicable Diseases  •  Margaret Chan, Director General, World Health Organization  •  Andrew Holness MP, Prime Minister of Jamaica  •  Anthony Lake, Executive Director, UNICEF  •  Zoleka Mandela, Global Ambassador, Global Initiative for Child Health & Mobility  •  Dikembe Mutombo, CEO & President, Dikembe Mutombo Foundation  •  Lord Robertson of Port Ellen KT GCMG, Chairman, FIA Foundation  •  Erik Solheim, Executive Director, UN Environment  •  Jean Todt, UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy for Road Safety  •  Michelle Yeoh, Actress & UNDP Goodwill Ambassador for the Global Goals  •  Vytenis Andriukaitis, European Commissioner for Health  •  Hamed Bakayoko, Minister of Defense and Security, Côte d’Ivoire  •  Violeta Bulc, European Commissioner for Transport  •  Hervé Hehomey, Minister of Infrastructure and Transport, Benin  •  Kandia Kamissoko Camara, Minister of Education, Côte d’Ivoire  •  Kone Mamadou, Minister of Transport, Côte d’Ivoire  •  Kitso Mokaila, Minister of Transport and Communication, Botswana  •  Brian Mushimba MP, Minister of Transport and Communication, Zambia  •  Mohammed Adjei Sowah, Mayor of Accra  •  Georges Bada, Mayor of Calavi  •  Isidore Gnonlonfoun, Mayor of Cotonou  •  Kagiso Thutlwe, Mayor of Gaborone  •  Carolyn Miles, President & CEO, Save the Children US  •  Mike Penrose, Executive Director, UNICEF UK  •  Janette Sadik-Khan, Chair of NACTO & the Global Designing Cities Initiative  •  Andrew Steer, President & CEO, World Resources Institute  •  Alex Thier, Executive Director, Overseas Development Institute  •  Kevin Watkins, Chief Executive, Save the Children UK  •  Bijal A. Balasubramanian, MBBS, PhD, Regional Dean, UTHealth School of  Public Health in Dallas  •  David Bangsberg, MD, MPH, Founding Dean, Oregon Health & Science University - Portland State University School of Public Health  •  Georges C. Benjamin, MD, MACP, Executive Director, American Public Health Association  •  Ana V. Diez Roux, MD PhD MPH, Dean and  Distinguished Professor of Epidemiology, Dornsife School of Public Health, Drexel University  •  Linda P. Fried, MD, MPH, Dean, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, Senior Vice President, Columbia University Medical Center  •  Glen N. Gaulton, Ph.D. Vice Dean & Director, Center for Global Health, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania  •  Stephen Hargarten, MD, MPH, Associate Dean, Office of Global Health, Medical College of Wisconsin  •  Michael J. Klag, MD, MPH, Dean, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health  •  William J. Martin II, MD, Dean, The Ohio State University College of Public Health  •  Alfred Sommer, MD, MHS, Dean Emeritus, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health  •  Devi Sridhar, DPhil, MPhil, Chair of Global Public Health, University of Edinburgh Medical School  •  Flaura Koplin Winston, MD, PhD, Scientific Director, Center for Injury Research and Prevention, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia  •  Saul Billingsley, Executive Director, FIA Foundation  •  Greig Craft, President, Asia Injury Prevention Foundation  •  Clayton Lane, CEO, Institute for Transportation & Development Policy  •  Rob McInerney, CEO, International Road Assessment Programme  •  Emma MacLennan, Executive Director, Eastern Alliance for Safe & Sustainable Transport  •  Nancy Pullen-Seufert, Executive Director, National Center for Safe Routes to School, United States  •  María Fernanda Rodríguez Bongoll, CEO, Fundación Gonzalo Rodriguez  •  Jeffrey Witte, Executive Director, Amend & President, Global Alliance of NGOs for Road Safety  •  Jonathan D. Klein, MD, MPH, FAAP, Executive Director, NCD Child  •  Graham Larkin, Executive Director, Vision Zero Canada  •  H.E. Mendoza Garcia, Permanent Representative of Costa Rica to the UN  •  H.E. Marie Chatardová, Permanent Representative of the Czech Republic to the UN  • H.E. Isabelle Picco, Permanent Representative of Monaco to the UN  •  H.E. Sheikh Khalifa bin Ali bin lssa Al-Harthy, Permanent Representative of the Sultanate of Oman to the UN  •  H.E. Courtenay Rattray, Permanent Representative of Jamaica to the UN  • H.E. Kelebone Maope, Permanent Representative of Lesotho to the UN  • H.E. Yvonne Hyde, Chief Executive Officer, Ministry of Economic Development, Government of Belize

About the Speed Vaccine campaign

The Child Health Initiative has launched the Speed Vaccine advocacy campaign to urge governments, cities, international lending institutions like the World Bank, urban and highway designers, and policy leaders to ensure that all roads and streets used by children have traffic speed limits, sidewalks and crossings that are safe for children. Our vision is a safe and healthy journey to school for every child.