Yesterday, at the Decade of Action Policy and Donor Forum held in New York City, Founding Member of YOURS Michelin received the prestigious and highly coveted International Road Safety Award from HRH Prince Michael of Kent. Michelin were praised for their outstanding contribution to global road safety.
“Michelin is a global leader in road safety innovation not only through its product development but also in the field of care for its own employees,” said His Royal Highness Prince Michael of Kent, Royal Patron of The Commission for Global Road Safety, and added: “But its wider corporate commitment to community safety and international programs is an outstanding example to all businesses.”
The award is given to Michelin for the outstanding contribution they have given to global road safety. Michelin was one of the key organizations behind YOURS helping to set it up, through their belief in young people’s potential to speak to their peers and effectuate lasting impact through road safety.
As part of its corporate social responsibility commitment, Michelin constantly and actively deploys a global system designed to put a halt to the serious problem of road safety. That’s because the Group’s strategic focus on performance would be meaningless without an on-going commitment to making roads safer, everywhere, around the world. In addition to its tyres and their performance, Michelin supports measures to make driving safer, providing employees with training and promoting road safety to the general public. Addressing the challenge of road safety represents a concrete application of one of Michelin’s core values – respect for people.
Every week more than 7,000 people around the world are killed in work-related traffic accidents, including commuting to and from work. In response, Michelin has introduced internal campaigns promoting safer driving practices and more efficient travel management. Since 2009, all sales and marketing employees take part in road safety training courses. Information tools include a Road Safety awareness kit provided to all employees in countries where Michelin has manufacturing operations. In the UK, the accident rate of the Group’s car fleet has been cut by more than 50% since a comprehensive driving policy was implemented five years ago.
Director of YOURS Mr Floor Lieshout handing over our Youth and Road Safety Action Kit to Mr Patrick Lepercq – Corporate Vice-President of Public Affairs at Michelin.
In addition to these internal measures, Michelin over the past 10 years has introduced a wide range of road safety programs in the countries in which it operates. While each program is adapted to the local situation, and often conducted in or with host communities, they are all designed to raise awareness about road-related dangers. Many of the programs target young people, cyclists and pedestrians, who are considered to be the most vulnerable road users.
One outstanding example is Michelin Junior Bike, an initiative that helps young people learn traffic regulations in a fun way and shows them how important it is to wear a helmet when riding a bicycle. Since 1998 in Italy alone, more than 184,000 children have participated in this program, which in recent years has also been held in France and the UK and is being introduced in more and more emerging countries. Other programs include The Safest Way, which is aimed at schoolchildren and is organised in partnership with local councils in Italy and Brazil, and Fill up with Air, which educates motorists about the importance of maintaining the correct tyre pressure in order to ensure their own safety as well as that of other road users. Conducted in Europe since 2003, Fill up with Air has recently been introduced on other continents.
All of these initiatives reflect Michelin’s long term commitment, which is also expressed in engagement through road safety charters signed at national and European level – Michelin also supports programs launched by the Global Road Safety Partnership (GRSP), in particular its five-year pilot projects introduced in China, the ASEAN countries, India and Brazil.
In May 2011, Michelin was one of the first companies, to sign the Global Road Safety Commitment in support of the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020 launched by the United Nations. In 2012, Michelin is investing €6 million worldwide to support global road safety initiatives.
In addition to Michelin, Sweden and the Gonzalo Rodrigues Foundation also received a Prince Michael Award for Road Safety. The Mayor of New York Rt Hon. Mr Michael Bloomberg received the first Decade of Action Road Safety Award for his outstanding contribution to road safety. Read about this here.
YOURS Director, Mr Floor Lieshout commented, “On behalf of the YOURS team we would like to congratulate Michelin with winning the Prince Michael International Road Safety Award. The commitment of Michelin towards road safety is outstanding and it is a well deserved prize and recognition for their work. We are proud to have such a Founding Member”.