Global Voice of Road Traffic Victims
WDoR Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021-2030:
Remember. Support. Act.
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WDoR CAMPAIGN 2025
#WDoR2025
As every year, the objectives of WDoR 2025 are to provide a platform for road traffic victims and their families to:
- remember all people killed and seriously injured on the roads;
- acknowledge the crucial work of the emergency services;
- draw attention to the generally trivial legal response to culpable road deaths and injuries and advocate for an appropriately serious response;
- advocate for better support for road traffic victims and victim families;
- promote evidence-based actions to prevent and eventually stop further road traffic deaths and injuries
Every year, millions more road victims are added to the current toll of over 50 million killed and hundreds of millions injured since the first road death. It is an actual pandemic, affecting primarily our vulnerable and our young, which in addition to the trauma of injury and bereavement has also a devastating economic impact for countries, communities and families. Therefore, during the Decade of Action 2021-2030 the World Day has an important role of helping to achieve the 50% road casualty reduction target.
Lost talents
When people are killed or severely injured in road traffic collisions before their time, the world loses more than just individuals — it loses their potential, their ideas, their future impact on society. They become lost talents. And lost talents become the soul of our platform.
The emptiness left behind after someone is killed or severely injured on the road is powerfully conveyed through scenes of an empty stage, a deserted sports field, or a quiet room — spaces where their presence is deeply missed, and their absence is painfully felt.
The statistic that “of all-cause mortality, road traffic injury remains the leading cause of death for children and young people” is straight-forward and haunting. That’s why we let it speak for itself and directly use it as the main message of our “Lost talents” campaign.
Campaign materials – Final visuals and toolkits are available for everyone to use.
Statements of support
Guidelines
About WDR
The World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims (WDR) is commemorated on the third Sunday of November each year.
It is a high-profile global event to remember the many millions who have been killed and seriously injured on the world’s roads and to acknowledge the suffering of all affected victims, families and communities – millions added each year to countless millions already suffering: a truly tremendous cumulative toll.
This Day has also become an important tool for governments and all those whose work involves crash prevention or response to the aftermath of crashes, since it offers the opportunity to demonstrate the enormous scale and impact of road deaths and injuries, call for an end to the often trivial and inappropriate response to road death and injury and advocate for urgent concerted action to stop the carnage.
On World Day we too pay tribute to the dedicated emergency crews, police and medical professionals, who deal daily with the traumatic aftermath of road crashes.
History
The World Day’s history began in 1993:
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In the UK, several church services in memory of road traffic victims were held in 1993 and 1994, coordinated by UK’s charity for road traffic victims RoadPeace, founded in 1992 and an affiliated member of the European Federation of Road Traffic Victims (FEVR) since 1993.
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Then from 1995 onwards, on the initiative of the Founder of RoadPeace Brigitte Chaudhry, all other road victim organisations under the umbrella of FEVR agreed to remember road victims in their respective countries on a common day and chose the 3rd Sunday of November as this Day.
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Many different remembrance events and ceremonies began to be held each year. At first the Day was named ‘European Day of Remembrance’, but soon ‘World Day’ when NGOs from Africa, South America and Asia – associated members of FEVR – joined, and when the Pope began to mention road victims in his Angelus Address on the 3rd Sunday of November.
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When in 2004 the newly established UN Road Safety Collaboration forum (UNRSC) was considering the inception of a global day on which to emphasise road safety, the endorsement of the World Day of Remembrance was suggested by its initiator, who represented road victims on this forum as FEVR’s president from 2004–2010. A resolution was duly drafted.
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On 26th October 2005, the World Day was adopted, unanimously, by the UN General Assembly as “the appropriate acknowledgement for victims of road traffic crashes and their families”.
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The UN adoption resulted in raised publicity and therefore in a growing number of countries commemorating the World Day of Remembrance, since every country on the globe is affected by the disaster of road death and injury.
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A dedicated website was launched and a Guide for Organizers written (Published by WHO) – to make the Day more widely known and to link countries through sharing common themes, goals and targets besides remembrance of people killed and injured in crashes.
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Some 25 years after its start, the World Day had become known and observed across all continents not only by NGOs advocating for road victims and road safety, but also by governments and many other related and relevant stakeholders.
Materials
Once again this year, Communication Agency 101 has generously donated the WDOR campaign, whose activities for 2025 are coordinated by IRVP.
In the toolkit, you will find materials that you may freely translate, adapt, or enhance – either on your own or with the help of a designer. To adapt the materials, you can use: Canva (online tool), LibreOffice Draw (computer program), Adobe Acrobat Pro, PDF-XChange Editor, Adobe Illustrator, Inkscape, …
You may use different ribbons (black, yellow, red) or candles, reflecting your cultural or historical context.
WDoR 2025 campaign presentation
Communication concept “Lost Talents”
WDoR 2025 campaign guidelines
Please read the guidelines for the use of materials and options for this year’s communication campaign.
WDoR 2025 materials
Toolkit, posters, billboards, citylights, social media, …
Candle Logo Gallery
WDoR logo in many languages
Symbol
The road traffic victims symbol
Symbol
The road traffic victims symbol
Partners
Events around the world
Events Organizers
Register your event
Please provide the information below. We need full details of the organizing individuals / organizations, but we will only publish or share the necessary details.
News
WDoR2024 Report
Across six continents, more than 140 organizations joined the WDoR 2024 campaign. Its powerful message reached and inspired around 600 million people worldwide.
Review 2023
2023 Review Here is a short video about what happened in 2023 featuring 30 years of WDoR Thanks to all who where with us and supported https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHnqZA5cb24