In 1995, a catastrophic accident occurred on the E4 freeway in Stockholm, Sweden. A hatchback automobile carrying five young individuals fell into a roll near the Ikea store’s exit ramp. The car drove into a concrete structure supporting a streetlight by the side of the road, killing all five passengers.
“I am rather sure they were speeding, and as it was wet, they probably aquaplaned,” claims Claes Tingvall. Almost 30 years later, he struggles to remember all the details, but he is certain of one thing.
More than 500 people perished on Sweden’s roads that year, but this tragedy was a watershed moment in how Tingvall, and eventually the world, viewed traffic fatalities. Every year, road traffic collisions claim the lives of an estimated 1.2 million people around the world, while millions more suffer life-altering injuries. While the death toll has decreased slightly over the last 13 years, with the number of fatalities on the world’s roads 5% lower than in 2010, progress has been slow and falls far short of the WHO’s goal of halving road deaths by the end of this decade.
