Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit organization behind the popular Sesame Street brand, has joined the Global Road Safety Partnership to educate children and families about the importance of road safety, especially in low- and middle-income countries. With the help of its beloved Muppet characters, Sesame Workshop plans to produce targeted multimedia content and distribute educational materials to create positive behavior changes, like wearing seatbelts, child restraints and helmets, for our cities’ most vulnerable citizens. Could there be a “Buckle-Me-In” Elmo one day?

According to the World Health Organization’s “Global status report on road safety,” published in June 2009:

Every year, road crashes kill nearly 1.3 million people and injure between 20 and 50 million more.

Worldwide, road traffic injuries are the leading cause of death among people aged 15 to 29, and the
second cause of death for those aged 5 to 14.

Road traffic injuries rank ninth among the leading cause of deaths for children aged 1 to 4 year.

Five hundred children die every day in road crashes.

More children died in Africa in 1998 from road crashes than from AIDS.

The partnership is well-timed, launched in the same year as the U.N. General Assembly’s proclamation of 2011-2020 as the Decade of Action for Road Safety.