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Road
traffic crashes in Latin America have increased by more than
8 per cent during 2004/05 and with expanding motorisation
and a continued lack of road safety culture, urgent action
needs
to be taken.
The
automobile clubs consider it their mission to help reduce road
traffic injuries and fatalities and believe that their
expertise can contribute to making a difference. They are
urging their governments to make road safety education compulsory
in schools and to require certified driver training by law.
Several clubs run educational programmes to familiarize school
children with different road traffic situations at road traffic
parks and by using road traffic education buses that travel
all over the country. The host club of Ecuador presented
its new campaign that aims to reach 100,000 children each
year with a mobile school, with technical support from the
Spanish club RACE. Best practice examples on road safety campaigning |
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and
driver school training were provided by RACE and Catalunyan
automobile club RACC.
Lack of seat belt
use and child restraint systems, drink driving and speeding
were among the most frequently cited problems in Latin America.
These are included in the messages of the FIA Foundation “Think
before you Drive” campaign which was also presented at
the conference.
Automobile clubs from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil,
Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador,
El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and
Venezuela expressed their interest in participating in the
Think Before You Drive campaign in 2006. Presidents of the
clubs attending the Congress signed the FIA Foundation’s
Think Global Road Safety pledge, expressing their concern to governments about
rising road traffic injuries in their region.
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