Road Safety Week 2012 will take place 19-25 November. The charity Brake, which coordinates the Week, is encouraging organisations, particularly fleet operators, to start planning now how they will take advantage of the event to promote safe driving to staff and show their commitment to road safety in the wider community. Organisations can log onto the Road Safety Week website to get ideas and register to receive free resources to help them take part.

Road Safety Week, now in its 16th year, is aimed at reducing crashes or promoting sustainable travel. It’s also an opportunity for organisations to gain recognition and engage the community to raise awareness about road safety as part of their CSR strategy.

Every year Brake picks a theme to focus on through its Road Safety Week media campaign. Organisations can choose to run their initiative on this or any other road safety topic.

According to Andy Cuerden, managing director at Interactive Driving Systems: ‘For many years now a number of our clients and partners including BT, Royal Mail, Iron Mountain, Suckling Transport and Wolseley have utilised road safety week to focus on key issues within their organisation, and within the communities in which they operate. It is an excellent opportunity to engage teams, their families and friends in road safety, and as a showpiece landmark event to plan program launches and re-launches around. At Interactive Driving Systems our experiences over many years suggest that work-related road safety is a conduit for community road safety and can leverage many branding, social responsibility and other benefits for organisations. Yet again this year we are running our own communications program for Road Safety Week, and encouraging all our clients and partners to participate’.

Brake’s main theme for 2012 is ‘Slower speeds = happy people’. Through national and regional media, Brake will be raising awareness of the importance of making it safer for people to walk and cycle in their own community, to get to work or school, and for their health and enjoyment. Brake will be calling on drivers to slow down to 20mph around homes, schools and shops, explaining that it’s a life-saver because it gives you a good chance of stopping in time in an emergency.

Brake deputy chief executive Julie Townsend says: ‘Organisations can play an important role in making our roads safer, raising awareness among staff, customers and contacts about safe driving, implementing ambitious fleet safety practices, and engaging the community. Road Safety Week is an opportunity for organisations to focus attention on this vital social issue and speak out about the difference we can all make in preventing needless tragedies and creating greener, safer communities.

‘Each year many organisations make a tremendous impact by getting the road safety message across during the Week, often gaining valuable publicity at the same time. The Road Safety Week website is full of ideas on how to get involved: log on now to register for an e-action pack and start thinking about how you’ll get involved to help save lives.’

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