In a big proportion of the world, the end of year festive season is a time of holidays, family, friends and often crazy weather conditions. Unless you’re in the Western Pacific or deep in Asia, a lot of the world will be experiencing intense cold weather and perhaps even snow. (Who’s dreaming of a white Christmas?).

During the holiday period, many of us also have time off work and spend time with our loved ones and sometimes, this means more drink – but don’t forget road safety!

We have gathered some tips from some of the leading road safety adivsories including RoSPA  and AAA.

We need to adapt the way we drive during the winter and be prepared for journeys that may take us through very varied weather, road and traffic conditions. When we have prolonged periods of snow, we tend to see a fall in the overall number of road casualties because fewer people take to the roads. Of course, accidents still happen at these times, and weather conditions can play a part.

Prepare your vehicle

It’s a good idea to have your vehicle fully serviced before winter starts and have the anti-freeze tested. If you can’t have it serviced, then do your own checks. In particular, check:

• Lights are clean and working
• Battery is fully charged
• Windscreen, wiper blades and other windows are clean and the washer bottle filled with screen wash
• Tyre condition, tread depth and pressure (of all the tyres, including the spare)
• Brakes are working well
• Fluids are kept topped up, especially windscreen wash (to the correct concentration to prevent it freezing), anti-freeze and oil

It’s also a good idea to stock up on de-icer, windscreen wash, oil and anti-freeze at the start of Winter.

Emergency Kit

When extreme weather is possible, keep an emergency kit in your car, especially if you’re going on a long journey. If this seems unnecessary, take a moment to imagine yourself stranded in your car overnight, due to a snow storm or floods. How would you stay warm? What would you eat and drink?

Prepare your journey

Listen to local/national weather broadcasts and travel bulletins – especially for the areas you will be driving through. As conditions can change rapidly, check them regularly and be prepared to change your plans if conditions on your route worsen.

If conditions are very bad, and the emergency services are recommending that people don’t travel, then avoid making your journey unless it is absolutely necessary. Can you postpone your trip? Can you travel by other means, or avoid the need for the journey completely by using the phone or email?

Of course, what’s ‘essential’ to one person may not be to another; we each have to make our own decisions according to our circumstances. But, try to be realistic about which journeys are essential and which ones could be postponed.

If you decide you really must travel:

• let someone know where you are going and what time you hope to arrive, so that they can raise the alarm if you get into difficulties.
• Plan alternative routes in case your main choice(s) becomes impassable.
• Keep your fuel tank near to full to ensure that you do not run out.
• Make sure you have a fully charged mobile phone, so you can call for help or alert someone if you’re delayed – it could be a long walk to a phone, if you don’t have a mobile phone.
• If you don’t have an emergency kit in your vehicle, at least take extra warm clothes, boots and a torch. Consider keeping a couple of long-life energy bars in the glove box.
• Clear your windows and mirrors completely of snow and ice before you set off (make sure the heater is blowing warm air before setting off – it will keep your windscreen clear.)

Drunk driving is a major contributory factor to road crashes and road deaths in the world. If you going to a Christmas party and plan to indulge in a drink or two and get merry,  don’t drive. Stay the night or plan a safe alternative to get home such as a cab or designated driver who does not drink all night. Did you know that even in the morning after you have slept you could still be drunk and over the limit? Read more about how drinking is absorbed into the body and how the body passes the alcohol with this calculator. This also goes for drugs too!

The 2016 Safe Roads | Safe Kids Summit helped build momentum for urgently-needed progress on road safety for children worldwide. The Summit focused on rapid implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (Global Goals) as they apply to road safety for children.

The Honorable T. Bella Dinh-Zarr, PhD, MPH, Vice Chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB USA) shared her session, which focused on American youth road safety activists.

Since 2014 we have been working with a super talented group of young people to develop road safety amongst youth in Belize. Over the two year period, we trained two cohorts of youth leaders in Belize in road safety theory affecting youth, fundamentals of peer education and facilitation alongside some key campainging skills.

The project, championed and sponsored by the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) and the Government of Belize (GOBZ) was timely, coinciding with infrastrcuture development in the country to improve Belize’s overall road safety system.

The Belizean Youth for Road Safety (BYRS) are an organization with bounds of energy, creativity and road safety knowledge. The group was formed as specially recruited youth leaders interested in road safety youth leadership who wanted to know more about making a significant contribution to their country’s road safety reality. In two Training of Facilitator workshops, the organization grew to 34 members who have the skills, knowledge and resources to reach out to their peers and educate them on road safety issues.

We worked with BYRS and trained them in road safety theory and key topics facing young people on the road. The youth were equipped with fundamental skills in facilitation; how to connect with their peers, how to run workshops that use a logical model of human learning as well as enabling creativity, expression, fun and learning. BYRS were set with a target of reaching 2000 young people in the country through in person workshops.

BYRS have been highly active in Belize to work with their peers in training them on road safety. The group successfully trained over 2000 youth in Belize across over 80 workshops all over the country. Alongside this, BYRS have secured a contract to train an addition 1000 young people across the country.

However, the youth in Belize have not stopped at workshops. Being the creative youth champions that they are, BYRS has also reached hundreds and thousands of youth all across Belize through campaigning, video public service announcements (PSAs), radio campaigns and media appearances to take road safety further.

Looking at the data collected from the trained peers in workshops, we can see an overall improvement of knowledge on road safety topics as defined by the Evaluation Officer in Belize. Young people who have undergone the workshops run by BYRS illustrate a positive change in attitudes towards road safety.

Second Review Visit
During November 2016, we went back to Belize to review the impact the project has had on the youth in the country as the young people part of the project. We also spoke with the stakeholders of the project to see their perspective on the programme.

“The project has been positive and very engaging; statistics in terms of crashes amongst young people is down”.
– Ms. Yvonne Hyde –Chief Executive Officer Ministry of Economic Development, Commerce, Industry and Consumer Protection

“The project has been very comprehensive and took into account the UN’s System Approach. It has enabled young people to share knowledge of road safety in their modus operandi; fun, engaging and informative”
– Ms. Pamela Scott – Project Manager of the Belize Road Safety Project (PMU)

Participants to the programme expressed that the programme has has a profound impact on them.

When asked how the programme has impacted their thinking, participants noted that they are more cautious road users, are challenging road safety culture by promoting the key risk factors in their every day lives and that it has helped them to perceive road dangers much more clearer.

When asked how the programme has impacted their personal development, particpants expressed that activities have helped with articulating arguments more coherently and logically. It has impacted profoundly on their confidence, especially in speaking and relating to their peers, becoming a better pubic speaker and with their personal and professional organization.

The programme has also impacted their day-to-day actions, with participants taking the necessary steps to be safer as road users such as using seatbelts, ensuring all passengers on two wheels are protected by helmets, reducing their own speed as well as encouraging people around them to do the same. Participants described their actions as having a ripple affect on friends and family. One expressed their friends and family have named her ‘Miss Road Safety’ for the impact and energy she places on safety measures as  a road user.

The wider perceived impact on the local area and the country as a whole is apparent through the workshops run across the country. While much has been done to educate youth on road safety, participants feel much more needs to be done in ensuring youth become empowered with road safety knowledge. As ‘roam wasn’t built in a day’, road safety culture still has a long way to go in embedding safer options for road users across the systems approach.

Read more about our project in Belize

The 22nd Meeting of the United Nations Road Safety Collaboration (UNRSC) took place recently and included updates from members in the world of global road safety. Part of the meeting was dedicated to the United Nations Global Road Safety Week, which is set for May 2017. The theme for the week is speed; the promotion of mesaures to reduce speed to save lives.

The UN Road Safety Collaboration is pleased to announce that the Fourth UN Global Road Safety Week will be held from 8-14 May 2017. The Week will focus on speed and what can be done to address this key risk factor for road traffic deaths and injuries. The Fourth UN Global Road Safety Week seeks to increase understanding of the dangers of speed and generate action on measures to address speed, thereby saving lives on the roads.

Speed contributes to around one-third of all fatal road traffic crashes in high-income countries, and up to half in low- and middle-income countries.

Countries successfully reducing road traffic deaths have done so by prioritizing safety when managing speed. Among the proven strategies to address speed include:

• Setting and enforcing speed limits appropriate to the function of each road, for example:
  • Setting and enforcing a maximum speed limit of 50 kilometers per hour in urban areas;
  • Setting and enforcing a maximum speed limit of 30 kilometers per hour on roads with high concentrations of pedestrians, cyclists and motorized traffic;

• Enforcing speed limits through the use of automatic speed cameras;
• Installing intelligent speed adaptation technology in vehicles;
• Building or modifying roads to include features that limit speed such as traffic lights, roundabouts and speed humps.

The Fourth UN Global Road Safety Week seeks to increase understanding of the dangers of speed and generate action on measures to address speed, thereby saving lives on the roads.

We will be assisting the World Health Organization (WHO) on the coordination, production and dissemination of the fourth week. This week will follow the legacy of the #SaveKidsLives campaign, which was highly interactive and engaging attracting over 1 million people globally in support of its message.

In developing the week, a new online platform will be created to host the week, which will also host information about all other weeks. This ensures that the fourth week and subsequent weeks will be consistently engaging, easy to navigate and connected.

 For now, organizations can register events for the Fourth UN Global Road Safety Week at WHO’s website:
http://www.who.int/roadsafety/week/2017/event-registration/en/

The Transport Accident Commission has launched a provocative new campaign urging Victorians to rethink the speeds they drive at. The Rethink Speed campaign features a television advertisement reminding Victorians that speed doesn’t always cause crashes but it always determines the level of injuries sustained. It depicts seven different outcomes in an incident between a young boy on a bike and a car approaching at seven different speeds.

In a sort of ‘road safety’ mannequin challenge, the TAC campaign rethinks speed.

“This campaign has a message for all of us – that we need to be mindful of our surroundings and the conditions when choosing our travel speeds,” Mr Calafiore said.

Rather than focussing on illegal speeding behaviour, ‘Rethink Speed’ encourages Victorians to choose to travel speeds that are safe, legal and appropriate for the conditions.

Behind the scenes at TAC’s new video:

“Speed limits don’t determine the speed we should be travelling at. They set the maximum speed we are allowed to travel at and in reality it won’t be safe at all times and in all conditions. We know that in any crash involving a car or motorbike, speed determines the level of injury. Increase your speed and increase the likelihood of severe injury or death in the event of a crash.”

The campaign will appear on television screens, roadside billboards, websites, radio and social media.

View the campaign video here:

Find out more about TAC’s innovative campaigns here.

Africa Road Safety 2016 marked the 5th GRSP road safety event in Africa since 2012. The event this year was held in Durban, South Africa.

Under the banner, ‘The Challenges for Communities, Cities, Companies and Countries’, GRSP and partners brought together 120 stakeholders from more than 20 countries representing government, civil society, research bodies and the private sector for a comprehensive event comprising a range of stimulating capability building workshops, keynote addresses, high level panel discussions and plenary sessions over two full days.

South African Minister for Transport, Dipuo Peters, who also attended our 2014 event when it was last in South Africa, gave a rousing address in the opening plenary urging those with capacity to act, to act – and encouraging stronger collaboration across the country and continent to take road safety activity to scale. The South African Minister focusing on young people in road safety, drawing attention to the biggest burden facing youth globally; road traffic crashes.

Reinforcing the Minister’s words, United Nations Special Envoy for Road Safety, Mr Jean Todt, sent a personalised video message to participants of the event calling for greater coordination of efforts in Africa in order to reach the ambitious road safety targets as set out in the Sustainable Development Goals.

Together with thought provoking keynote presentations from GRSP, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), the event focused on capacity building through a programme of 3 engaging panel discussions and 6 interactive workshops which addressed key aspects concerning data, children, youth, policing, the private sector and infrastructure.

We were involved in the youth workshop focusing on how we can activate young leaders to take responsibility for road safety as advocates, youth ambassadors and key actors.

There was also an open ‘Speak Up’ session giving participants an opportunity to share challenges and successes, to highlight their take-aways from this event, and to reflect on learnings from previous GRSP events.

Participants left feeling connected with other like-minded actors, enriched with ideas and examples of good practice and motivated to take learnings back to their community, company, city or country and strive for real change.

GRSP’s regional events have become flagship events on the road safety calendar. Since 2007, GRSP has conducted 14 such events in 10 countries bringing together more than 2100 road safety practitioners from over 50 countries to share knowledge and professional experiences, discuss successes and challenges, showcase good practice and build strong regional networks where previously few had existed.

Africa Road Safety 2016 was made possible because of the generous support from Event Partners Shell, Total and Toyota, and Event Supporters the Ethekwini Municipality and Alcolizer.