Road traffic safety initiatives are gaining momentum worldwide as more governments and international organizations recognize the implications of traffic accidents on economic and human development. In 2015, as part of its Sustainable Development Goals, the United Nations Development Programme set a global target (3.6) to halve the number of traffic deaths and injuries by 2020. This article uses the International Futures integrated forecasting system to explore the plausibility of achieving that goal and the potential forward linkages of such an intervention. We find that halving annual deaths caused by road traffic accidents is likely to be overly ambitious, and examine more reasonable road traffic death‐rate targets using an approach derived from road traffic death rates relative to income level.

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