Advocating for road victims and road safety.

The World Day’s history began in 1993:

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.

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.


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.


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.


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”.


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.


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.


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.