Mr Floor Lieshout receieved an warm response from the delegates at the World Road Congress as he encourages all delegates to involve young people in road safety. Floor presented alongside Director of the Violence and Injury Prevention and Disability department at the World Health Organization Dr Etienne Krug, who is a longstanding supporter and advocate for YOURS.

Floor focused on the key issues pertaining to youth and road safety issues with a focus on the importance of young people’s participation in road safety as a crucial component of improving the road safety situation for young people.

Floor then went on to talk about the key work of YOURS on a global level from awareness tools that are free to download to our faciliation of assemblies, conferences and workshops. There are lots of developments at YOURS that offer an exciting development in the field of global youth and road safety issues.

A key message from the presentation focused on increasing the participation of young people in road safety in a meaningful and impactful way, in a nutshell reasons to involve young people are:

• Youth have a right to participate in decisions that affects them;
  
• Youth are the main victims and can be a big asset in the solution as well;
  
• Youth are the next generation of stakeholders (shaping the world of tomorrow where they need to live in);
  
• By involving youth you are developing their skills for life.

The conference continues until Friday 30th September. You can view Floor´s presentation in the attachments in the right column.

YOURS conitues to put the spotlight on organizations who have recently joined our Global Youth Network for Road Safety and shared a high level of information. Drivers Edge UK  and the S.A.M.E Academy was recently introduced to YOURS and the story of Mr Wale Yusuff who translated personal tragedy into a sustainable road safety organization is one of great inspiration. Read about Drivers Edge UK and the S.A.M.E Academy here.

The S.A.M.E Academy is a acronym for Safety Awareness Mentoring Education whichare the principles and values that underpin the work of this organization which is powered by Drivers Edge UK.

The Academy began when the founders friend died in a road traffic collision in 2006 which then sparked an interest into road safety and spreading a road safety message with young people.

Overview of Activities:

Young drivers are the most at risk road user with more than 2 of every 5 deaths involving young drivers. Driving is an extremely popular topic within young people aged 14 – 21 and no matter the barriers new drivers are faced with whilst attempting to access motoring, they are still making it onto the roads with approximately 1.4 million them taking their driving tests each year.

Mr Wale Yusuff, founder of the S.A.M.E Academy told YOURS, ‘Our unique academy consists of a programme and interactive workshops & seminars designed to develop the mind sets and attitudes of young drivers and passengers (separate to the novice factor), highlight the key causes of road traffic collisions as well as providing the awareness needed to spot hazardous situations applicable to the young and new drivers’

The seminar typically lasts an hour covering the most relevant of our content within that time frame. On the other hand, the programme consists of 4 sessions typically lasting 50 minutes each with each week covering one aspect of the S.A.M.E acronym, using the remaining 10 or so minutes to have change over time or time for questions.

The Academy engaged through young people throught simple interaction, they told us the key to engaging young people is, ‘Interaction, interaction, interaction. Once interactive and engaged the young people are intrigued and thus listen to the message we’re trying to get across’

In the future the S.A.M.E Academy are  looking into lesson packs, webinars and DVD’s to promote road safety messages more. This will allow them to deliver our seminars & workshops on various platforms.

Mr Wale Yusuff told YOURS, “Road traffic collisions is the single biggest killer of young people in the UK, a young person is killed or seriously injured nearly every day. Let us work together to break the stereotype and promote road safety. Safe is cool”

Find out more at www.sameacademy.co.uk

YOURS recently partnered with The Inter-American Developmental Bank on the release of the Surreal Poster Series. This partnership saw a massive subscription to the posters in the Americas region and brought much global publicity for this road safety tool. Here we look at the IDB’s efforts for road safety.

The IDB’s Road Safety Initiative is considered groundbreaking in the region. With this effort, the Bank aims to lead a process of change that will promote road safety actions in Latin America and the Caribbean with a view to permanently reduce the region’s high rate of road accidents. 

More than 1.2 million people die each year on the world’s roads, and approximately 50 million suffer nonfatal injuries. The latest surveys of road safety in Latin America and the Caribbean show that the region’s roadway fatality rate is approximately 17 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants, compared to the average for high-income countries of less than 10 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants. By 2020, these figures are expected to jump to 24 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants. Should these estimates and forecasts for 2020 prove accurate, Latin America and the Caribbean as a region will have the highest roadway fatality rate in the world.

To combat these alarming figures, the IDB is taking measures in the area of road safety. These include:

• Incorporating road safety into all transportation and road infrastructure operations
• Working closely with governments to design and implement national road-safety plans and/or strategies
• Securing adequate and stable financing for road-safety measures
• Promoting public awareness of the major risk factors of road accidents and supporting road-safety education in schools
• Improving hospital care for road victims and support for disabled people
• Forming closer partnerships with governments, the private sector, and civil society 

The initiative, furthermore, is built upon five strategic pillars which are consistent with the framework of the recent approved United Nations General Assembly Resolution A/64/L.44, which proclaims the period 2011-2020 the “Decade of Action for Road Safety”.

• (i) Road safety management capacity
• (ii) Infrastructure
• (iii) Vehicle safety
• (iv) Road user behavior
• (v) Post-crash care for victims

IDB and and YOURS

IDB partnered with YOURS on the launch of the Surreal Poster Series and also helped with the translation of the posters into Spanish. YOURS also recently attending an IDB event in Calgary, Canada focusing on youth developmental issues to which YOURS brought attention to the global problem of road traffic crashes.

You can download our posters from the IDB website too!