Arianna Huffington, co-founder and President of Huffington Post Media Group has accepted an invitation to join the FIA High Level Panel for Road Safety. This Panel brings together global leaders to promote innovative solutions to meet the road safety health and development challenge. 

According to the 2015 WHO Global Status Report on Road Safety, some 1.25 million people are killed each year around the world and 50 million injured and disabled due to road traffic crashes. 90% of these fatalities occur in low- and middle-income countries, despite only accounting for 54% of the world vehicles. This global crisis is comparable to that of the AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis and yet most people have never heard of road safety being considered in those terms.

Launched by the FIA in November 2015 with the support of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the High Level Panel for Road Safety targets at engaging both the public and private sectors to raise much-needed new resources and awareness for road safety. It will contribute to the global effort to halve road related fatalities by 2020, as indicated in the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

In her effort to tackle the road safety crisis, Arianna Huffington launched a new campaign on drowsy driving on 5 April. Recent studies have shown that drowsy driving, or driving tired after too little sleep, is as dangerous as drunk driving. Drowsy driving leads to up to 1.2 million car crashes per year, and results in up to 500,000 injuries and 8,000 deaths. Arianna Huffington encourages the general public to take the pledge to not drive drowsy, to not let their friends and family drive drowsy, and to join the effort to bring the same attention to drowsy driving as to drunk driving.

FIA President Jean Todt said: "I am happy to support this important campaign which will help raise awareness of the very real dangers which driving when tired or fatigued can cause for you and other road users."