Foreword to Annual Report 2018

I am proud to report that in 2018 we ramped up our advocacy efforts. We have been part of multiple high-level panels promoting our key-messages on youth and road safety issues. For example, together with the European Office of the World Health Organization, YOURS organized and chaired a session on meaningful youth participation in road safety in Malta; we were part of the Safety Conference in Thailand and joined multiple strategic initiatives around the world such as the Commonwealth Road Safety Initiative.

In 2018 the World Health Organization launched the latest Global Status Report on Road Safety. It stated that road traffic injuries are now the leading killer of people aged 5-29 years. In the past decade there has been success in providing safe mobility for young people in some parts of the world but it is clear that much more needs to be done.

When my children make a mess, I ask them to clean it up. However, this #1 global health threat to children and young people is not their mess, nor their fault. Let us please stop blaming young people for dying on our roads.

YOURS asks for a paradigm shift in thinking. Youth pay a heavy toll for a broken mobility system and they have a right to be at a very minimum, informed about it. Besides being informed, they need to be consulted and included in developing a safer system.

With the UN Global Road Safety Week mind, I ask our road safety youth champions to #SpeakUp for #RoadSafety and start being loud. Let your voices be heard and demand a safe journey. And while you urge decision makers to do so, claim a seat at the decision-making table. You deserve to be part of the solution and ensure that your needs are being heard.

The other side of the coin is for young people to act as role models. And although I understand that especially in LMCIs you often have no safe choice to travel, there are many things that are in the control of your own hands. You can speak up when your public service vehicle is speeding, or the driver is distracted.

You can make your friends aware of the risk of not wearing a seatbelt and ensure you always wear one yourself, you can promote being visible while walking at night and never drink or drug driving.

In conclusion I thank all of our partners, collaborators and donors for your support; further details are highlighted in this report. I look forward to further expand our impact in the years to come.

Floor Lieshout
Executive Director

‘Last year, 377 people died on New Zealand roads. That figure is far too high and what we need to keep in mind is that most of these deaths were preventable.’

Lisa’s comments, while frank, carry a note of optimism. She believes that as a country, we can change the situation. What’s more, young people have a role to play – more on this below.

Her own job is focused on reducing harm on the roads through evidence-based strategies. She works closely with the Transport Agency Board to develop and monitor its road safety plans and works with partner agencies to put strategies into action.

‘No single organisation can rid society of the blight that is road trauma; we’ve all got to tackle it together,’ she says.

Preventing Harm
Like other road safety professionals, Lisa talks about crashes, rather than accidents – as the latter word can trap us into thinking little can be done to reduce harm. She also talks about casualties, because improving road safety is all about people.

‘If property gets damaged, we can fix that, but people aren’t so easily fixed. We need to try and avoid the harm in the first place.’

‘The level of death and serious injury on our roads is actually a preventable problem. You can take the level of trauma down in New Zealand if you are prepared to be bold. We know how other countries have done it, and that knowledge informs our own strategic work on the problem.’

Safe System: a lens for student investigations
New Zealand has a road safety strategy in place through to 2020 and the Government is working on a new strategy for the ten years to 2030.

From 15-19th July 2019, we will be joining partners in Eastern Cape of South Africa to deliver an empowerment training with young humanitarians in Port Elizabeth. 15 young people, selected from the South African Red Cross Society will be trained as Young Ambassadors in the region who will go on to run workshops and campaigns with university students and the Nelson Mandela University in Port Elizabeth.

The project is a follow on from the 2 year programme run with Young South Ambassadors in the Limpopo District. This year, the project extends to Port Elizabeth on the Eastern Cape of the country. The programme is a joint initiative of the Global Road Safety Partnership South Africa (GRSP ZA), The South African Red Cross Society (SARCS), The South Africa Department for Transport, YOURS and funded by the Michelin Corporate Foundation.

South Africa approached SARCS National Office with the concept of introducing a road safety project partnership with the Red Cross. It was recommended by National Office that the project be implemented in the Eastern Cape Province, particularly in Port Elizabeth.

It was decided that the project would be based at the Nelson Mandela University campus and members of the NMU’s Red Cross chapter would be trained as Road Safety Ambassadors to implement awareness and support campaigns to increase road safety awareness.

15 Road Safety Ambassadors, under the leadership of the Red Cross EC Provincial Youth Coordinator, Mr S Veto will be required to conduct campaigns as well as provide support group structures to new drivers as well as those applying for driver’s licenses.

The training kicking off next month on the 15th July has the following objectives:

By the end of the training, Ambassadors will be able to:

1. Explain the road safety crisis facing young people globally and in their country and describe what factors put youth at risk.
2. Identify the key risk factors in road safety; distracted driving, drink and drug driving and seatbelts.
3. Demonstrate methods of influencing young people to develop a road safety culture in their communities; through peer education and campaigning..
4. Develop the essential skills to be a strong road safety ambassador; presentation skills, communication skills, creative messaging and action planning.

See a video from our First Youth Ambassadors training in South Africa:

The group will focus on a range of topics through an interactive, brainfriendy and dynamic training. Topics to be covered include:

Road Safety:

1. Scope of the Road Safety Problem: In the world and South Africa
2. Youth and Road Traffic Injuries
3. Distracted Driving
4. Drink and Drug Driving
5. Non-Use of Seatbelts

Skills Based Training:

1. Facilitation Skills
2. Presentation Skills
3. Peer Education
4. Communication Skills
5. Spreading a Road Safety Message
6. Action Planning

You will be able to keep up-to-date about the workshop online by

FOLLOWING US ON TWITTER  READ ABOUT OUR WORKSHOPS

The Youth Stars programme is an opportunity for our Master Trainers to be trained on a powerful road safety approach; Star Rating for Schools.

Dovilė Adminaitė-Fodor, lead author of the report, commented:

“As long as people don’t feel safe walking and cycling in our towns and cities, many will be discouraged from using the most sustainable modes of transport.  This can create a vicious circle because people who take the car instead put all the vulnerable road users around them at greater risk.

“Over the next ten years, we want to see the EU and all European countries investing in urban transport in a way that prioritises the most vulnerable road users.  This is not just about safer infrastructure and setting safe speed limits but also better enforcement of speed limits as well as reducing drink driving and distraction.

“Many cities and towns are rightly focussing on improving air quality and sustainability in cities, and discouraging private car use.  But safety concerns must go hand-in-hand to ensure that more people cycling and walking are able to do so in a safe environment.”

One of the key challenges for cities is enforcing safe speed limits.  Among the countries that monitor levels of speed compliance on urban roads countrywide, between 35% and 75% of observed vehicle speeds in free-flowing urban traffic are higher than the 50 km/h limit.

The report also found vast differences in the level of safety across the European Union.  Mortality on urban roads is highest in Romania with 105 road users killed annually per million urban inhabitants – four times the EU average.  But there are also several countries leading the way.  Around nine people per million urban inhabitants are killed on urban roads in Sweden, 11 in the UK, 13 in the Netherlands and 14 in Ireland and Spain.

In terms of recent progress, Latvia, Greece, Portugal and Poland are the EU countries that made the most progress in reducing urban road deaths between 2010 and 2017.

The authors of the report also say that changes in mobility patterns might have a profound effect on urban mobility and urban road safety in the future. The restricted space in urban areas must be used intelligently and effectively to enable increased mobility without putting road users in danger.

The uptake of e-scooters and other new forms of mobility might also require new national legislation or city-level regulations, infrastructure adjustments and educational activities, similar to the road safety adaptations required for more cycling. A lack of data and regulation is hindering progress in this area at the present time, according to the report.

The report contains more than twenty main recommendations for action at EU, country and city authority level and can be downloaded from the ETSC website at: www.etsc.eu/pinflash37.

Summary of the Report infographic: