The Safer Road Ahead: 2023 submissions to the FIA President’s Road Safety Award

27.11.23

FIA Member Clubs demonstrated their commitment to a safer future on the roads with 13 entries to the 2023 FIA President's Road Safety Award.

Launched in September 2022, the FIA President’s Awards aim to recognise the work that FIA Member Clubs do to drive sustainable and measurable change across the fields of Climate Action, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, and Road Safety. By celebrating Clubs’ efforts and successes, the Awards aim to promote wider conversation and positive change, ensuring that effective solutions can be recognised, understood and adopted within the FIA community and beyond.

The Road Safety Award specifically champions projects which improve road safety or promote a culture of safe mobility.

This year, the FIA have received thirteen submissions, across a wide variety of innovative projects including those about road safety data, education, pedestrian safety, and advocacy. Today, we are pleased to announce that the entrants are:

  • Eastern Alliance for Safe and Sustainable Transport (EASST)
  • Automobile Club d’Italia
  • Automobile Association of Kenya
  • RAC Foundation
  • The Australian Automobile Association
  • Mobilité Club Maroc
  • Touring y Automóvil Club del Peru
  • Touring y Automóvil Club de Colombia
  • Road Safety Institute ‘Panos Mylonas’
  • AIP Foundation
  • Automobile Club of Moldova
  • Automóvil Club del Ecuador ANETA
  • National Roads and Motorists' Association

The winner will be announced on 8 December at the FIA General Assemblies meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan.

More detail on the entries can be found below:

 

Ensuring Safe Pedestrian Crossings with Eastern Alliance for Safe and Sustainable Transport (EASST)

Road safety isn't just about improving streets for drivers, cyclists, and passengers - it's about making them work for pedestrians too. With this in mind, the Eastern Alliance for Safe and Sustainable Transport introduced ‘Step by Step’, an initiative which aims to improve small scale pedestrian infrastructure across Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus. The organisation identifies key areas for interventions using crash data, observational study, and blackspot analysis, and then implements adjustments alongside local traffic police, NGO partners and city authorities. Since January 2022, EASST has used this approach to improve a total of nine crossings in Sumgayit (Azerbaijan), Chisinau (Moldova), Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan), and Uralsk (Kazakhstan).

Part of the project was carried out using FIA School Assessment Toolkit based on the iRap methodology. EASST received support from the FIA Road Safety Grants Programme and the FIA Foundation.

 

Discouraging Distracted Driving with the Automobile Club d'Italia

Using your mobile phone while driving makes you much more likely to crash your car - putting yourself and other drivers at risk. The Automobile Club d'Italia (ACI) decided to tackle the problem head on, and introduced 'Guida@Sicura' in their app SaraConMe. The new functionality monitors handheld calling, phone handling, and accelerometer events to measure how distracted users are at the wheel. It then provides a score and real-time behaviour coaching to encourage users to take a more focused approach to the roads.

 

Promoting Good Road Safety Habits with the Automobile Association of Kenya

Good road safety practices can start at any age, which is why the Automobile Association of Kenya introduced a new junior membership for 3–17-year-olds. The junior membership allows kids to access training on road safety, complete with easy-to-understand road safety messaging, fun activities and quizzes. The organisation hopes that the new initiative can help drive far-reaching change, ultimately heralding a new future for road safety in Kenya.

 

Encouraging People to Drive Fit with the RAC Foundation

Speeding, tiredness, drunkenness or mobile phone usage — all of them can put drivers, and other road users, at risk. DriveFit — a new RAC Foundation initiative — aims to mitigate these risks, by educating young people on what they are and how to avoid them. The programme consists of a film and online workshop, which are delivered over a two-week period to reinforce and strengthen learning. The programme has received national and international recognition as an example of good practice in road safety education.

 

Improving Road Safety Research with the Australian Automobile Association

Road safety is a key issue for the Australian Automobile Association (AAA) and its 8.9 million members. In an effort to reduce the number of fatalities or crashes in Australia, the AAA and its seven member clubs created the AAA Road Safety Research Program (RSRP). The project allows AAA clubs to contribute directly to improving road safety knowledge, practices, behaviour, and technology through research. So far, the programme has funded six multi-year projects.

 

Bringing Road Safety to Schools with Mobilité Club Maroc

In June 2022, Mobilité Club Maroc introduced a new road safety campaign across public and private schools. Benefitting 2,000 pupils from across Marrakech, Agadir, Casablanca and El Jaida, the programme aimed to encourage better road safety practices among all young people.

 

Reminding People to Wear Motorcycle Helmets with Touring y Automóvil Club del Peru

'Usa un casco seguro' is a new initiative which aims to encourage young people to wear helmets when riding motorcycles. The programme targets students in their final year of high school (as well as the wider general public), and includes training and awareness raising messages. By September 2023, 8,127 people had received the training, including 1,747 students.

This road safety project was carried out with support from the FIA Road Safety Grants Programme funded by the FIA Foundation.

 

Highlighting Road Safety Issues to Government Leaders with Touring y Automóvil Club de Colombia

Government leaders are pivotal to road safety. Their interventions can save lives. But in order for them to intervene, they first need to understand the full extent of the issue. That's why the Touring y Automóvil Club de Colombia (ACC) organised bicycle tours for mayors and councils across five major cities, showcasing issues with infrastructure, signage, and high-speed vehicle usage. The ACC plans to continue to monitor outcomes over the course of the election year, to see the impact of the initiative.

 

Launching a Road Safety Academy with Road Safety Institute ‘Panos Mylonas’

Road Safety Institute ‘Panos Mylonas’ introduced an easy-to-use eLearning course, known as the 'Road Safety Academy', to promote better traffic safety culture. The course has three different variations for drivers, novice drivers and parents, plus plenty of useful educational material, quizzes, and FAQs. Users have celebrated the platform, with an overall rating of 97%.

 

Using Big Data to Analyse Road Safety Around Schools with the AIP Foundation

The ‘AI and Me’ project uses big data and AI to evaluate the safety of roads and infrastructure around schools in Ho Chi Minh, Pleiku, and Yen Bai. So far, 106 school areas have been assessed, with the support of the International Road Assessment Programme’s Star Rating for Schools methodology, as well as anecdotal data from the Youth Engagement App (YEA), which young people can use to record areas they find unsafe or uncomfortable.

 

Making School Zones Safer with the Automobile Club of Moldova

Ensuring kids are safe walking to, from, and around schools is essential. The Automobile Club of Moldova successfully campaigned for changes in policy around Safer School Zones, to help mandate 30kph speed limits, and improve infrastructure in critical areas around school buildings.

This project was carried out with support from the FIA Road Safety Grants Programme and the FIA Foundation.

 

Delivering Road Safety Education with the Automóvil Club del Ecuador ANETA

The Automóvil Club del Ecuador ANETA carried out a road education project, with the aim of reducing traffic crashes and promoting safe and sustainable mobility. The project was delivered over 11 months to 34,080 students in 23 cities of Ecuador.

 

Using Tech to Reduce the Risk of Distracted Driving in Australia with the National Roads and Motorists' Association

Concerned about distracted driving, the National Roads and Motorists' Association (NRMA) created a new technology to reduce phone usage on public roads. The software enabled detection and photographic evidence capture to help enforcement agencies identify and prosecute illegal mobile phone use while driving — ultimately helping to keep Australian roads safer. An initial pilot was used to survey 8.5 million cars in New South Wales, and effectively identified 100,000 drivers illegally using their phones.