SINGAPORE: About 1.3 million people die in road accidents every year and 50 million more are hurt or seriously injured.
Malaysian movie star Michelle Yeoh, who is in Singapore for the Formula One race, hopes to halve the death rate by 2020.
Yeoh is the global ambassador for the international “Make Roads Safe” campaign and has worked to promote her message in Asia and Africa.
Last week, she launched a multi-million programme with the Clinton Global Initiative in New York to assess ways on improving road infrastructure.
She said: “The simple fact of the matter is that the statistics are horrendous. We’re using the roads, this is a basic need, a basic right of anybody, whether you’re a car driver, a motorcyclist or a pedestrian. We cannot allow people to be killed or to be hurt like that.”
The campaign is funded by the FIA Foundation, a charity started by FIA, the International Automobile Foundation.
Yeoh’s fiance, former Ferrari CEO Jean Todt is running for FIA presidency.
And when asked if his election would lend weight in pushing her cause, Yeoh said it was not an issue.
She said: “If it’s Jean, I’m more lucky, because it’s easier to get the message across because he was the one who put me here in th
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