Brian’s Column: “He drives like a girl” – masculinity in road safety?

Brian’s Column: “He drives like a girl” – masculinity in road safety?

by | Dec 12, 2023 | News & Blog

In this month’s column, Brian explores the masculinity around driving behaviour in africa. From driving too fast to the phrase, ‘You drive like a girl’. Does this mean women drive better or worse? Brian’s column explores some of ideals behind masculine driving and combating the idea of a ‘driving like a girl’.

Hello there, please grab some popcorn because this is gonna have you clad onto your seat! Wherever, you are reading this from, thank you for staying and encouraging your sphere of influence to be safe! So, let’s go straight into the mix, shall we?

Just a quick update:
In the world of trauma and prehospital care, the climax of July within the East Africa Region and Africa to be precise seems to have been the 7th Pan African PCAF Psycho trauma Conference. This conference was organised by the Peter C. Alderman Foundation team from July 21st -23rd 2014 in the beautiful location of Mbarara, Uganda:-my local home town! The conference which was attended to by 508 delegates from 21 African countries and 7 others outside of Africa aimed to draft a way forward regarding trauma in the region.

All delegates had specific interest in mental health and psychosocial support services for populations affected by armed conflict and adversity more broadly in Africa. It was a perfect occasion to learn from colleagues about new developments as well as stimulating presentations and discussions around first aid and road safety, refugee mental health; mental health in primary care; sexual and gender-based violence; psychological and social interventions in post-conflict areas; and children, adolescents and trauma. As it stood out in the conference road crashes are the #1 killer of young people worldwide and inevitably increases the physical economic, social and emotional burden of trauma on the already poor communities in developing countries.

Now, you know why and how the bug of “He drives like a girl” appeared in the discussions as one of the causes of road traffic crashes especially amongst young drivers. While at the conference, my ‘feminist’ views on road safety were put onto a beam balance in what some delegates called “Drive Like A Girl” – a naked advocacy statement targeting especially  young people aged between 17 and 30 to be safety conscious drivers by “driving like a girl”. I am not so sure what you are thinking right now: O Alright, ok, I’m being slightly cheeky there but the delegates meant the target population should be able to drive with all eyes open, always gluing to all the road signs as well taking a break on long journeys.

But I am not sorry to apologise as ‘Drive Like A Girl’ kinda makes me slightly uneasy. Does it under look females and encourage the aggressiveness of young male drivers? Does it demean females as poor drivers?

The bottom line: According to my feminine doctrines and backgrounds (as a male, an equality and equity convert!), yes, it does. The usage of a female-bug to portray safety especially in the current patriarchal society will have a negative feedback mechanism amongst young male drivers that will be characterized by mockery:-‘Look, He Drivers LIKE A GIRL’. Consequently, this will increase chances of speeding, breaking the road rules, showing the masculinity: all culminating into higher road traffic crashes and mortalities. But again, that’s my opinion, as I don’t have an evidence based research findings on this. What do you think? Are you ready to ‘Drive Like A Girl?’ Whatever your answer is, it should be encouraging my safety, your safety and our safety! Hello August! ☺

‘Mandela Day’ call for UN post-2015 action on road safety

‘Mandela Day’ call for UN post-2015 action on road safety

by | Dec 12, 2023 | News & Blog

As the world reflects on Nelson Mandela’s legacy, we give thanks for his life, his leadership, his devotion to humanity and humanitarian causes. We salute and thank him for his sacrifices for our freedom and our future. Mandela day offers people an opportunity to take action and in his name, The Zenani Mandela Campaign continues to promote the cause on an international platform.

zenani mandela logo
More at Make Roads Safe.

Zoleka Mandela, the granddaughter of Nelson Mandela, has called for road safety to be part of the new global development goals in a film for MY World, the UN’s worldwide campaign encouraging people to vote for their priorities.

The film was released to mark ‘Mandela Day’, Nelson Mandela’s birthday, which is a global day of public service. The MY World initiative is being promoted worldwide as part of Mandela Day which is held on 18 July but with events running for much longer around the date. In her film, Zoleka Mandela rallies support for the post-2015 agenda and highlights the campaign she is backing for road safety to be part of the UN’s new development goals.The film is being pushed out on social media by MY World which currently has over 2 million votes worldwide. Zoleka Mandela said

“I have been campaigning to combat the biggest killer of young people, road traffic injury. It is a huge burden on developing countries. But we can defeat it. Just a simple target on road safety in the new goals would save millions of lives. We can and we must take action.”

The piece was recorded ahead of Mandela Day at the Sivile Primary School in South Africa’s Western Cape. Sivile Primary is running a ‘Safe Schools’ project launched by the Road Safety Fund and supported by the FIA Foundation to reduce road traffic injury with safe infrastructure and education.

Supported by Zoleka Mandela and her family, the campaign calling for road safety to be included in the new development goals has made important progress.

The latest draft proposals compiled by Governments at the UN, has included a global target to halve road traffic fatalities by 2030 within a suggested Health Goal. This development is the result of coordinated advocacy and sustained campaigning led by the FIA Foundation and the Make Roads Safe campaign.

A draft set of proposed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will be submitted to the UN General Assembly in September and this will be a major milestone in a long process to design the new development agenda. There is still much campaigning to be carried out, with a final set of SDGs eventually due to be launched in September 2015.

Zoleka Mandela and her family have been campaigning for global road safety in memory of Nelson Mandela’s great-granddaughter Zenani, who was killed in a car crash when she was just 13 years old.

Click here to watch Zoleka Mandela’s Video for MY World

For more on the campaign, to vote for ‘better roads and transport’ and to call for your Government to support the road safety target at the UN  visit www.targetsavelives.org

ISO – NextGen is tackling road safety for young people – join now!

ISO – NextGen is tackling road safety for young people – join now!

by | Dec 12, 2023 | News & Blog

YOURS has recently partnered with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) for their NextGen programme which focuses on youth and road safety issues. Road accidents are the #1 killer of young people world- wide. ISO NextGen – Road safety is looking for the next generation of experts to discuss the major challenges in this field and how International Standards might help. It has a sister project, ISO NextGen – Climate change, with similar aims.

These are brand new projects for ISO and they are all about reaching out to a wider community of young professionals to discuss today’s hot topics.


What do I have to do as part of the project?

  • Be an active member of an online community using a platform to share ideas (via blogs, discussion forums, polls, etc.) and collaborate on a document outlining how International Standards can help to address the most pressing challenges in road safety. The platform will be open for 6 weeks starting from August 4.
  • Attend online events to open and close the 6 week period where guest speakers will discuss their ideas.
  • Explore how international solutions,such as International Standards, should be developed in the future.

  1. Can anyone get involved?

We’d like to hear from young professionals who repre- sent the future generation and are not already involved in standardization work.

The ideal profile for our participants is:

  • 25 – 35 years old
  • Qualifications – a formal qualification from a higher educational institution related to the subject area
  • Experience–5 years of professional experience in the subject area
  • Little to no involvement in national or international standardization activities
  • Demonstrated passion and vision for the subject area – takes initiative, thinks innovatively and influences others
  • However, if you are interested in getting involved and you don’t exactly fit these criteria, do let us know!

What will I get out of it?

Participation in ISO NextGen – Road Safety will help you:

  • Make contacts and interact with other passionate experts in your field of expertise
  • Make contacts with established international experts (from ISO committees and working groups)
  • Learn from guest speakers who will participate in the online events
  • Bring your ideas to a wider, international community
  • Influence the future of standardization in the sector and make a contribution to solving the most important global challenge in your field of expertise
  • Contribute to raising the visibility of the issue of road safety at the international level

If you are interested in participating in the ISO NextGen – Road safety online community, please send an email with a few words about your motivation and a copy of your CV to Katie Bird (bird@iso.org).

Your Ideas Your Initiatives – European schools contest campaign

Your Ideas Your Initiatives – European schools contest campaign

by | Dec 12, 2023 | News & Blog

Our friends at Your Ideas, Your Iniatives have launched a road safety summer contest aimed at young people and the world of education. You can play on their Facebook page and win a Kindle every 15 days! This competition is aligned with the yearly school project of Your Ideas, Your Iniatives, that encourages young people in schools to come with innovative road safety solutions and projects with the chance of winning prizes.

The United Nations has declared 2011-2020 as the Decade of Action for Road Safety in order to contribute to a decrease in the number of deaths on the road worldwide. The Decade aims to mobilise public, private and civil society sectors and organisations to commit to improving road safety in their countries.  Renault officially supports the UN Decade for Action in Road Safety.

Renault’s educational programme “Safety and Mobility for All” is entering its eleventh year. So far, it has trained more than 12 million youngsters worldwide. The international project “YOUR ideas, YOUR initiatives” started in 2011. It involves many schools from selected countries around the world that are committed to achieving changes in their community with regards to road safety and sustainable mobility.

Teachers are invited to join this international initiative with their students (aged 15-17 years) to develop a participatory classroom project. The aim is to enable and encourage young people to contribute to overcoming some of the major challenges facing our society. The project is designed to inspire students to think about what changes could be made to make  roads safer and more sustainable, thereby improving all our lives.

Young people can take part in the summer contest with a chance of winning an Amazon Kindle

The programme is structured in such a way that students, while improving safety and mobility in their community, are also educated to be active, democratic citizens who act and initiate change.A series of educational materials guide the teachers in their work with the classes: the teaching differs from the traditional behaviour-oriented education, and is based on an action competence approach.

The work with the students is structured in two steps, as the project invites youth to: 

  1. Reflect upon key issues regarding road safety and sustainable mobility – “Your ideas”
  2. Implement an awareness campaign in their school or community– “Your initiatives”

Creativity is a central aspect of the project:  it promotes student participation and creative thinking, and motivates them to act in order to change their community. Teachers around the world are encouraged to join the “YOUR ideas, YOUR initiatives” project, using the form available on this website.

Read more about the campaign here.

7 child deaths a day prompt Save the Children ‘7% project’ – Thailand

7 child deaths a day prompt Save the Children ‘7% project’ – Thailand

by | Dec 12, 2023 | News & Blog

A new campaign supported by our friends at the FIA Foundation has been launched in Thailand in response to the shocking figures that 7 children die every day in the country. Working with Save the Children and the AIP Foundation, the FIA Foundation is supporting a major new campaign to protect children on Thailand’s roads. Traffic accidents kill more than 7 children a day in Thailand and injuring or disabling almost 200.

Wearing a motorcycle crash helmet can significantly reduce the risk but just 7% of the 18 million children that travel as passengers on the back of an adult’s motorcycle do so.

Save the Children and the Asia Injury Prevention Foundation (AIPF), together with other global and regional experts in children and road safety, have started the 7% project; a nation-wide campaign to increase helmet use and save lives, with funding support from the FIA Foundation.

Working together with teachers, parents and children, in its first year the campaign aims to create an integrated grassroots offline and online community to mobilise schools to feature motorcycle helmets as a permanent part of the school uniform.

As the campaign matures, the 7% project aims to expand beyond schools to include all destinations in a child’s daily commute. Bringing on board government agencies, corporate partners and media together with the strong offline and online movement, the campaign will work to ensure that all children will be wearing helmets every time they travel as a passenger on a motorcycle.

The first phase of the campaign, just launched, is a competition inviting Thailand design professionals, university students, and the general public to submit ideas for a slogan and logo for the awareness campaign, geared towards a Thai speaking audience.

In an earlier preparatory phase of the initiative, also co-funded by the FIA Foundation, Save the Children Thailand worked with AIP Foundation, CSR Asia and the Global Road Safety Partnership to gauge the efficacy of innovative measures to increase child helmet use in order to build an effective multi-partner campaign in Thailand.

Experimental trials were conducted throughout Bangkok from November 2013 to January 2014, including the launch by AIP Foundation of a trial “pop-up” helmet retail kiosk at a petrol station in Si Praya, Bangkok, that aimed to increase accessibility of children’s helmets. During the two week pilot, the kiosk sold discounted children’s helmets donated by Vespiario (Thailand) Co., Ltd., and trained staff interviewed customers about their response to selling children’s helmets at petrol stations and the motivations behind their purchases.

The initiative also included a roundtable bringing together business leaders to review effective fundraising strategies and to consult on concepts for awareness campaigns, and extensive research amongst children, teachers and parents to understand barriers to motorcycle helmet wearing, guiding the development of the ‘7% project’. A formal campaign launch will be held in November 2014.

Saul Billingsley, FIA Foundation Director General, said: “This is an innovative and ambitious project, and demonstrates real commitment by Save the Children to tackling child road deaths. The success of the initiative will depend on attracting additional donor funds, so we encourage private sector donors to join the FIA Foundation in supporting action to prevent avoidable child injuries on the roads”.  

Click here to support the campaign on Facebook.

Training of Facilitators in Belize, Caribbean completes first stage!

Training of Facilitators in Belize, Caribbean completes first stage!

by | Dec 12, 2023 | News & Blog

We are incredibly excited to announce that last week, we successfully completed the first stage of the Training of Facilitators. The training took place in Belmopan, Belize and concluded on the 27th June 2014. 19 youth leaders were equipped with the skills, knowledge and ignited passion to reach more than 2000 young people through road safety workshops across Belize.

With the support of the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) in partnership with the Government of Belize (GOBZ) last week, YOURS successfully completed a two week Training of Facilitators undertaken by 19 bright, passionate and inspiring youth leaders from across Belize.

The training, part of a wider 20 month educational project existing alongside major road infrastructure and law enforcement upgrades comes at a time where young people are the biggest affected group in relation to road traffic crashes. The national road safety project sees the development of several major highways and the illustrative ‘road safety corridor’ which will be created as a beacon for the rest of the country to follow suit in safe infrastructure. Belize alone has 22.2 inhabitants dying per 100,000 citizens; a high proportion of road deaths in the world and one of the highest in the Caribbean. We place this in comparison to other countries such as The Netherlands which has a ratio of 3.4 per 100,000 and the UK’s 3.7 per 100,000 citizens.

Director of YOURS, Floor Lieshout, Rt Honarable Minister of Education Patrick Faber and Caribbean Development Bank representative and architect of the programme, Mr Glen Mc Carvell speak in the closing ceremony.

19 young people from across Belize picked up their graduation certificate at the end of the two weeks which was presented by R.t Hon Minister of Education Patrick Faber and Caribbean Development Bank representative Glen McCarvell. The two weeks concluded with the closing ceremony of the first staage of the programme. The subseqent year will see these 19 young people reach out to over 2000 young people from across Belize.

In week one, the young leaders participated in a week of road safety theory. From how crashes happen to why youth are at particular risk of road crashes; from road safety in Belize to road safety in the world, from distracted driving to drink and drug driving through the speeding. The young Belizean leaders were also given an in depth insight into the fundamentals of human learning and the key skills for facilitation, crucial for the youth to be able run their own workshops with their peers which are interactive, engaging and educational.

The trained youth facilitators ran their own pilot workshops in week two putting theory into practice.

In week two, the trained facilitators put their theory into practice by running youth and road safety workshops for the first time with a selection of young people from across Belize. In total, our facilitators were already able to reach 120 young people in a series of six pilot workshops focusing on distracted driving, speed and drink driving. As a first taster of their own workshops, the trained facilitators are now ready to go out and reach thousands of young people in youth and road safety workshops.

YOURS takes this opportunity to thank all the partners involved in making this first leg of the training a real success. Namely, Mr Glen Mc Carvell of the Caribean Development Bank who has championed this programme in the Caribbean Region, Ms Pamela Scott of the Road Safety Project in the Finance and Project Management Department of the Government of Belize and of course the young people for their spirit, dedication and passion for the cause. In the coming year, 2000 youth will be reached and YOURS will be visit Belize again to see the youth in action and address and any learning needs. After this, a refreshment training will be undertaken and subsequently reaching a second cohort of young facilitators.

You can be sure to check out several videos in true YOURS style shortly!