Our friends at Shell Oil recently shared their latest road safety project with us; a road safety film that has been produced with Shell workers to highlight the issue of road safety. It tells the touching tale of a young girl named Wei-Wei, who waited for her father to come home on her birthday and ends with some top tips of road safety. It is a poignant and unique approach in engaging the workforce of an company to promote road safety for the ‘human’ reasons; preventing heartache and loss caused by road traffic crashes.

Do you know how many people are killed or injured in road traffic crashes in a single week? Have you ever thought about what YOU can do to improve Road Safety? Well, at Shell some of our China colleagues have found a smart way to promote road safety…by being a Shell movie star!

In June, the Shell China Country Leadership Team endorsed a special project to support China’s Road Safety education in a refreshing way. Now, after several months’ of hard work, the final product is ready to be shared.

Project Manager Bernd Marx says, “What has made this film special was that all the actors were Shell China employees and their families.”

More than 100 colleagues and kids from more than 15 different Shell China businesses contributed to this Shell China Road Safety video with the aim to raise the awareness on road safety internally and externally.

What’s the micro movie all about?  We’re telling the sad story of little girl named Wei-Wei who lost her father in a tragic road traffic accident. The film gives a clear message about the importance of road safety in a natural, storytelling manner, while passing key road safety messages around Shell’s Life Saving Rules.

The great performances of the Shell China Staff and the whole atmosphere of the traditional Chinese culture make the message in the film so powerful. It gives food for thoughts on how we individually can raise the awareness of road safety to ourselves, our families and the public in general and for future generations.

Shell China Road Safety micro movie – In China, for China is definitely a movie worth seeing, especially because its shows that road safety matters to all of us and that everybody has a role to play.

Click on the following link to enjoy the movie and share it with as many colleagues, family members and friends as possible. This is the first thing YOU can do!

The European Night Without Accident was created in Belgium to aim towards a night of ‘zero’ fatalities related to drink and drug driving. Spearheaded by the Responsibile Young Drivers organization, the night has been extended to all European Union countries over the past ten years with the support of the European Commission and will take place this Saturday 19th October all across the continent.

The European Night Without Accident is an awareness campaign organised each year in nightclubs all over Europe on the 3rd Saturday of October.

The action takes place in two phases. First, at the entrance of the nightclubs the volunteers, aged between 17 to 29 years old, encourage each group to choose a “designated driver”, who agrees to make a promise: he commits himself to be sober when he sits behind the wheel of his vehicle. The volunteers ask the clubbers who want to participate to wear a bracelet to be recognizable. 

When the “designated drivers” leave the nightclub, we give them the opportunity to undergo a breath analysis to check if they have honoured their commitment. In some nightclubs, drivers will also be asked, on a voluntary basis, to do a drug test. If they are under the legal limit, the “designated drivers” are rewarded with small presents offered by our sponsors. If this is not the case, we encourage the person to leave his/her car on the side or to hand the keys to a friend who did not drink any alcohol or use drugs, 

Our goal is not to be repressive or to spread a negative message; on the contrary we always try to dialogue with the group in order to find the most reasonable solution to get back home safely.

Young people speak to other young people
The particularity of the European Night Without Accident is to organize a unique event run by young people who want to convince other young people about the importance of a responsible behaviour behind the wheel”, which is credible with young people. The dialogue between youngsters is the major asset of the event. The use of a simple language and the friendliness of the exchanges enable the message to be conveyed further and is surely more persuasive. Volunteers do not use a repressive or superior approach, nor a ‘fatherly-motherly’ tone, which are attitudes that young people refuse and don’t want to understand.

Changing young people’s mentality
The most important aim of the project partners is to draw young people’s attention to the importance of the responsible driving and to reduce the number of the accidents in which young people are involved. The method: to insist on the necessity of modifying the driver’s behaviour, which is the only way to obtain permanent results. In a long term, a positive approach of the problem gets better results.

Read about the results of the European Night Without Accident for the past ten years below:

• Results of the European Night Without Accident – the 20th of October 2012
• Results of the European Night Without Accident – the 17th of October 2011
• Results of the European Night Without Accident – the 17th of October 2010
• Results of the European Night Without Accident – the 17th of October 2009
• Results of the European Night Without Accident – the 18th of October 2008
• Results of the European Night Without Accident – the 20th of October 2007
• Results of the European Night Without Accident – the 14th of October 2006
• Results of the European Night Without Accident – the 15th of October 2005
• Results of the European Night Without Accident – the 16th of October 2004
• Results of the European Night Without Accident – the 25th of October 2003

We highlight a recent article by The Guardian with our own experience on the topic of road safety measures targeting taxi drivers in low and middle-income countries. As part of their focus on global road safety development the Guardian place a focus on a new UN Habitat report calling upon stakeholders to regulate the ‘informal taxi industry’ and we share our experience of our how our young Kenyan facilitators are engaging with this industry through their own workshops.

Improving the safety of minibus taxis is critical to reducing deaths and injuries from road accidents in the developing world, according to UN-Habitat, the United Nations’ human settlements programme.

Dzikus was speaking before the publication of the group’s human settlements report, published every year on World Habitat Day. The latest edition focuses on urban mobility. Policy challenges on that front include mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, ensuring equal access to transport services, reducing congestion, and dealing with crime on transport networks. But road safety is also a major focus.

Road traffic crashes are the leading cause of deaths among 15-29-year-olds, according to data from the World Health Organisation. About 1.24 million people are killed in such incidents every year, nearly double the toll for malaria. And more than 90% of road deaths are in low- and middle-income countries.

As well as the personal costs of road accidents – such as fatalities and life-altering injuries – are costs to a country’s economy. One study found that road accidents cost developing countries about 1% of their gross national product each year; more than some of those countries receive in annual foreign aid. Dzikus says minibus taxis, ubiquitous in many cities of sub-Saharan Africa, are an important piece of the road safety puzzle.

But, says the report, a few policy steps can go a long way toward making shared taxis safer. Governments should start by introducing driver-training programmes, requiring seatbelts in minibus taxis, and obliging motorists to get their vehicles inspected regularly.

YOURS commends the report calling for increased road safety measured to be targeted at the ‘informal’ transport industry, a service that has, in many parts, gone unregulated with disastrous road crashes. Last year, YOURS’ Training of Facilitators in Kenya brought together a group of young Kenyan leaders passionate about road safety to tackle some of Kenya’s most pressing road safety issues.

The premise of the Training of Facilitators is train a group of young people in key elements of road safety theory in both an international a local perspective coupled with on the ground practise of road safety facilitation. A key discussion that came out of last year’s training was the increasingly dangerous habits of the transport sector. This included the speeding and lack of seatbelt use of ‘matatu’ (mini bus taxis) and lack of helmet use of the ‘boda boda’ taxis (motorcycle taxis). A lively discussion ensued tackling some of the myths surround the perceived hygiene concerns in sharing helmets and some of the easy solutions.

After the Kenya Training of Facilitators, the youth facilitators have already run a number of sessions targeting public transport providers including the boda boda and matatu community:

We take the opporunity on the publishing of the report by UN Habitat to encourage further focus on the informal taxi industry in low and middle-income countries. Our young Kenyan facilitators have more workshops planned with the industry (who are oftern their own peer group) to convince them of the importance of implementing road safety, not only for their own good practise but to save their passengers’ and their own lives.

We also call upon decision makers in low and middle-income countries to implement effiencetlaw and enforcement of road safety laws, safe infrastructure and roads, safe vehicles and road users as well as invest in quality post crash care. 

Find out more about our workshops and their impact here.