Heather 'no leg' ads bid to cut road deaths

Heather Mills-McCartney, wife of the former Beatle Paul, has said she will appear in public service adverts without her prosthetic leg to draw attention to the 1.2 million traffic deaths that occur worldwide each year.

Her left leg was severed below the knee when she was hit by a police motorcycle in 1993. Nearly 20 years earlier, her mother had lost a leg in a traffic accident.

“It took one human error to take my leg and one human error to take my mother’s,” she said today at the launch of the World Health Organisation’s year-long focus on traffic safety.

She said many traffic deaths and injuries could be prevented if nations would focus on improving safety.

“You really can fix this. It’s just about more awareness,” said Mills-McCartney, who married ex-Beatle Paul McCartney in June 2002.

The televised public service announcements featuring Mills-McCartney, a model who also works to help children maimed by war, will be broadcast worldwide this year.

The World Health Organisation found that traffic crashes would kill 2.3 million people a year by 2020.

US president George Bush called road safety “a significant worldwide health issue” in a taped message played at the WHO gathering.

World Bank vice-president David De Ferranti called traffic deaths “an unequal killer” because 90% occur in low- or middle-income countries. In 2002, traffic crashes killed 28 out of every 100,000 people in Africa, compared with 14 out of every 100,000 in the United States.