Each year, about 1.2 million people die in crashes on the world’s roads and many millions are seriously injured. Taking effective action to cut this unacceptable toll begins with reliable data, on the scale of the problem, exposure to crash risks and the effectiveness of policies. Transport ministries, road safety agencies, research institutes, industry and non-governmental organisations co-operate in the International Traffic Safety Data and Analysis Group (IRTAD) to improve collection and analysis of data, understand trends in the rates of death and serious injury and improve the empirical basis for designing more effective road safety policies. Common reporting standards allow benchmarking of performance across the membership of the IRTAD. The group’s 2016 Road Safety Annual Report provides the most recent road safety data for member countries, including provisional data for 2015 and an overview of road safety strategies in each country.