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Global Newsletter April 2016 |
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Dear Friends and Supporters, On any given day, our offices are bustling with activity as we coordinate the many moving parts behind our successful road safety programming. Given the constant influx of emails that need responses and to-do items that need crossing off, it comes as a welcome reminder of the impact our work has when we hear success stories from the field. Some of the most recent examples of these have come out of China, where our Walk Wise program is teaching students how to be savvy road users in oftentimes hazardous environments. It is especially satisfying to read stories from teachers who have taken our road safety messages to heart, like Mr. Feng from Chengdu, who enjoys spreading the curriculum so much that he has even taken to teaching children in his own neighborhood in his spare time. The long-lasting behavioral change that Mr. Feng has brought about will serve his community well for years to come, and will hopefully help avoid tragedies such as those witnessed this month in Thailand, as increased vehicle use during the Songkran New Year celebrations resulted in a record 442 killed. Read on to find more information about our programming in China, Thailand, and elsewhere. Kind regards, Mirjam Sidik
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Table of Contents |
Global |
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Vietnam |
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Cambodia |
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Thailand |
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China |
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Employment Opportunities
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Global |
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Photo of the month
Have a relevant road safety photo? Tag AIP Foundation on Facebook, Twitter, or on Instagram (@makingroadssafe) for a chance to have your photo featured here! |
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#SaveKidsLives pushes for the 2020 Action Agenda to be implemented by governments
#SaveKidsLives has launched their 2020 Action Agenda. There are five priority actions that must be put in place urgently to reach the global target of halving road deaths by 2020. Leaders worldwide must turn their words into action to save lives. Read the 2020 Action Agenda here. Visit the all-new #SaveKidsLives website at www.savekidslives2020.org. We ask you to check out the new steps to start a wave of real action around the world. |
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UN General Assembly adopts resolution seeking to establish road safety trust fund
A major stride for the advancement of global road safety was made this month at the 70th session of the United Nations General Assembly. In support of the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) agenda on road safety and the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety, the Assembly adopted a draft resolution entitled “Improving global road safety”, which requests the Secretary-General consider the possibility of establishing a global “Road Safety Trust Fund”; the development of SDG global performance targets on major road safety risk factors and service delivery; and the inclusion of road safety in the upcoming Habitat III UN conference on sustainable urban development. Among those who advocated for the resolution at the Assembly were Jean Todt, President of Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), FIA Foundation Chairman Lord Robertson, and United States Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power. For more information, please see the news posted by the United Nations here. |
Vietnam |
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Walk with FedEx Tour brings pedestrian safety lessons to 22,500 Students in Ho Chi Minh City
From February to April 2016, FedEx and AIP Foundation (operating as Safe Kids Vietnam) organized the Walk with FedEx Tour to bring pedestrian safety knowledge, equipment, and materials to 22,500 students in 18 primary schools across District 9 in Ho Chi Minh City. The tour aimed to increase awareness about pedestrian safety among all members of the community, including its youngest and most vulnerable. Walk with FedEx Tour held Safety Day events at each school to educate students about pedestrian safety in a light-hearted way. FedEx employee volunteers and school coordinators facilitated in-class trainings, distributed educational materials, led games that enforced central safety messages, and provided guidance during traffic simulations, which allowed the students to practice pedestrian safety skills in a secure environment. These events were followed by interactive stagings of the play “The Tortoise and the Hare”, featuring actors from Ho Chi Minh City Theater, to convey pedestrian-safety messages in a novel and fun manner. Walk with FedEx Tour is an initiative of Walk this Way, a road safety advocacy program launched by FedEx and AIP Foundation in 2009 to create safer, more walkable communities for child pedestrians. Since its launch, the program has reached 92,647 students from 118 primary and secondary schools across Vietnam, installed a 1,700 square meter traffic-safety park in Dong Nai Province for primary school students, and donated 3,472 helmets, 19,855 reflective jackets and caps, and 59,177 pedestrian-safety books to students. To view more photos, click here. |
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Australian Embassy takes part in successful
Helmets for Kids donation ceremony
The Australian Ambassador to Vietnam, HE Mr. Hugh Borrowman, was joined by nearly 1,000 people on the 4th of April for a Helmets for Kids helmet donation ceremony at Nguyen Trai Primary School in the Bac Quang District of Ha Giang Province. In attendance were Dr. Khuat Viet Hung, the Executive Vice Chairman of the National Traffic Safety Committee (NTSC), Mr. Uong Viet Dung, the Deputy Chief of the Secretariat of the NTSC, and representatives of AIP Foundation, the Department of Education and Training, the Ha Giang Traffic Safety Committee, the Ha Giang Traffic Police, and the Bac Quang People’s Committee. 1,035 helmets were distributed to 1,035 students from Nguyen Trai and Viet Vinh primary schools in Bac Quang District. The project was sponsored by the Direct Aid Program of the Australian Embassy. |
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Abbott volunteers participate in extracurricular activities aimed at enhancing child road safety competency
Throughout the months of March and April, AIP Foundation, in collaboration with Abbott Laboratories, the National Traffic Safety Committee, and the Ministry of Education and Training organized extracurricular events focused on road safety at 11 schools throughout the country. Abbott volunteers were in attendance along with approximately 2,000 students and teachers at Truong Dinh School in Ho Chi Minh City. These activities are part of the education component of the Abbott-funded Helmets for Families program, which has been working to increase road safety literacy and safe behaviors among Vietnamese families for the past three years. To view photos of the event, click here. For more details of the event, read the press release here. |
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Updated calculations attribute Vietnam’s 2007 helmet law to over US $4 billion in savings and 33,500 fatalities averted
AIP Foundation was a leading actor in the movement that spurred the Vietnamese government to implement a national helmet law in December 2007, which has resulted in impressive and far-reaching savings for the country and its people. According to updated estimates, in the eight years since the legislative change, US $4.5 billion in medical costs, lost output, and pain and suffering have been avoided, along with 33,500 fatalities and 670,000 serious injuries prevented. While sustained, targeted efforts are still needed to address the continued chaos and danger of Vietnam’s roads, this data shows that change is possible and can affect millions of people. |
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Related news: Da Nang police start requiring that traffic violators write sentences as punishment
Traffic police in the city of Da Nang are attracting much public attention with their unconventional way of punishing offenses. Thu Tuyet, a 22-year-old student, posted on an online forum Saturday that she was stopped by a team of traffic police officers a day earlier for driving on the wrong side of the street. Tuyet was worried that she would receive a ticket. After producing papers, she was told by the officers that she could choose to write the sentence “I promise I will not drive on the wrong side again” 20 times. She was allowed to go after finishing the writing punishment. |
Cambodia |
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Commune-wide meetings reflect on successes and challenges of
Head Safe. Helmet On. project implementation
AIP Foundation, in cooperation with target district authorities, organized its fourth series of commune-wide meetings to discuss the successes and challenges of implementing the Head Safe. Helmet On. (HSHO) project in Kampong Speu amd Kandal Provinces. The meetings gathered 135 participants, among them various district authorities, commune road safety working group members, and media representatives from Samrong Tong and Chbamorn Districts in Kampong Speu Province and from Kien Svay District in Kandal Province. The meetings were covered by two local television channels, Bayon TV and Hang Meas. In the past two years of HSHO project implementation, the commune road safety working groups have faced certain challenges in successfully promoting helmet use among passengers in their communes. These challenges have led to the following lessons learned, which will in turn be used in the following cycle of the program: (1) more cooperation is needed with the district traffic police for effective and stringent enforcement; (2) increased awareness can be achieved through village forums and meetings; (3) partners would benefit from additional educational and communications materials; (4) strict adherence to fining non-helmeted passengers is key; (5) and advocating to provincial and district road safety committees will ensure effective enforcement and implementation of the planned actions. |
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Road safety school groups inspire communities to change behavior
During this school year, 18 schools from the provinces of Phnom Penh, Kandal, and Kampong Speu worked to disseminate critical road safety messages as part of a “Schools of Excellence” competition to raise road safety awareness. Throughout the year, school groups engaged in such activities as the painting of road-safety-themed murals and the distribution of materials aimed to improve both road safety behavior and their school’s infrastructure. Prior to the competition, students and teachers received road safety education training in order to be well-versed on these topics. An award committee comprised of representatives from the Ministry of Education, the National Road Safety Committee, the National Police, and AIP Foundation recently conducted a second evaluation at the 18 schools. The committee reviewed relevant submitted materials and interviewed teachers and students in addition to surveying the area around the school to observe school murals, the surrounding infrastructure, and safety materials available for students. After gathering the necessary information, the committee will provide information to AIP Foundation to determine the outstanding school in each participating province and to track its progress the following year. |
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Related news: Hospital stats suggest uptick in helmet use
Doctors at the capital’s Preah Kossamak Hospital are still dealing with plenty of traffic collision-related head injuries, but this week took note of a new phenomenon – a significant jump in the number of patients who were wearing helmets when those accidents occurred. The data seems to suggest a direct correlation between helmet usage and this year’s concerted effort to enforce the new Traffic Law, said Dr Kee Park, a Harvard University Paul Farmer Global Surgery Scholar and consultant neurosurgeon at the hospital. “The weakness of this data is that it cannot be generalized for all Cambodians,” Park cautioned. But “this could be an indication that the overall helmet usage is increasing”. |
Thailand |
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Member of AIP Foundation's Legal Development Program gives speech during Automobile Symposium 2016
Police Colonel Kriangsak Chantarawong, member of AIP Foundation's Legal Development Program, was a guest speaker during Automobile Symposium 2016, an event organized by the Thai Automotive Industry Association and the Grand Prix International Public Company. His speech analyzed the success of Section 44, a clause of the 2014 interim constitution of Thailand which has been used to ensure expeditious responses to road safety concerns during New Year 2016. During the lecture, Colonel Kriangsak focused on the insufficiency of existing law enforcement tools and legislation in Thailand as well as the lack of an institute dedicated to traffic law. The Legal Development Program is a collaboration between AIP Foundation and the World Health Organization with support from the Bloomberg Initiative for Global Road Safety. |
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Launch of Facebook page for Legal Development Program in Thailand
AIP Foundation's Legal Development Program (LDP), a collaboration with the World Health Organization with support from the Bloomberg Initiative for Global Road Safety, recently debuted a Facebook page dedicated to disseminating information about its activity to a broader audience. The LDP's immediate aims are to encourage legislative improvement in the arena of road safety in Thailand, in part by mobilizing key individuals to advocate for legislative change, while the broader goal is to leverage the power of the law to create a culture of road safety in Thailand. For more information, please visit and "like" the FB page to support the campaign to improve Thailand's national laws and regulations on road safety. |
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Collaboration at police checkpoints aims to reduce accident rates during Songkran Festival
Volunteers were out in full force at police checkpoints in Songkhla Province at the start of the Songkran Festival, the Thai New Year celebration, in hopes of promoting safe driving and educating locals about new road safety regulations. AIP Foundation was joined by 74 volunteers in total, among them representatives from Chevron Thailand Exploration and Production, the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation, the Songkhla Provincial Health Office, and the Songkhla Police Station, as well as civilians from the Songkhla Civil Defense Volunteers, the Songkhla Volunteer Defense Corps, and local schools, who positioned themselves at road checkpoints in Muang and Sinhanakhon Districts for this special event. More than 2,000 people were educated as a result of this effort, which is embedded within the broader Street Wise program, an initiative focused on increasing the awareness of road safety dangers and the fluency in preventative skills among Songkhla’s residents. |
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Related news: Drunk drivers in Thailand may be sent to work in hospital morgues
To try to combat the carnage on the country's roads during the annual weeklong traditional New Year's holiday celebration, Thai authorities are going gory: Drunk drivers and repeat traffic offenders may be sent to work in hospital morgues to see the fruits of their irresponsibility. The Songkran holiday puts untold thousands of Thais on the road, returning to their home villages from the big cities to reunite with families and cut loose, with alcohol usually fueling the festivities. Much of the joyriding takes place on motorbikes, with little observance of helmet laws. The government's safety campaign appropriately calls the period -- during which it is estimated 2.3 people die and 160 are injured every hour -- "The Seven Days of Danger." Casual attitudes toward road safety give Thailand the second worst record in the world for traffic fatalities, and health and safety experts fear the situation may be getting worse. The government, which earlier this year said drunk drivers could have their cars impounded for the duration of the holiday, last week approved the morgue shock treatment plan. |
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Related news: Another bout of hand-wringing over the country’s lethal roads
Smoke belched from the exhaust of a double-decker coach as it laboured over a rail crossing a short distance from Bangkok, Thailand’s teeming capital. The vehicle, which was full of Thai holidaymakers, paused for a moment, as if stalled. Within seconds a train ploughed into it, spinning the coach by 90 degrees and depositing it metres up the track. Three people were killed and 30 injured. Captured on a security camera, the accident at a crossing in early April is one more reminder of the daily carnage enacted on Thailand’s roads (although this one, unusually, involved a train). More grisly scenes are likely this weekend, when 22m Thais travel back to their workplaces after celebrating Songkran, the Thai new year. Road accidents always spike during the “seven days of death” that encompass the festival. A similar surge accompanies revelries at the turn of the calendar year. |
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Related news: Road toll soars to record 442 killed over Songkran
A total of 442 people were killed in road accidents across the country during the "seven dangerous days" of Songkran which ended on Sunday, up a huge 21.4% on last year despite the government's intense road safety campaign. There were 3,447 road crashes, from which 3,656 people were admitted to hospital for treatment of serious injuries, from April 11 to April 17, Interior Minister Anupong Paojinda, chairman of the Road Safety Directing Centre, said on Monday. Four out of every five accidents involved motorcycles. A total of 442 people were killed, he said. |
China |
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Walk Wise aims to create safer school zones during congested dismissal hours
The Walk Wise program, which aims to bring issues of pedestrian safety into the public discourse and educate community members to be safer road users, recently began targeted efforts to manage traffic congestion around school zones during dismissal hours. The first step in this process started with a parent workshop at Hanfeng No.6 Primary School. The Principal of the school, Mr. Liao, the Vice Principal, Mr. Wu, the Safety Director, Mr. Zhang, and eight members of the Parents' Committee were in attendance at the workshop. In his remarks during the gathering, Mr. Liao encouraged parents to volunteer in helping manage the school zones during dismissal and promoting safe traffic behaviors among their children. With over 3,400 students enrolled at Hanfeng No.6 Primary School, there are a great number of parents invested in making sure the school zone is orderly, and these parents, if willing to volunteer of their time, can greatly contribute to the safety of their communities. At the workshop, AIP Foundation's China staff introduced a road safety system to the gathered parents and discussed inherent traffic hazards. Every parent in attendance also enrolled themselves to become volunteers at the school. Moving forward, the working group of school principals, safety directors, parents, and AIP Foundation will conduct traffic observations, identify traffic hazards, and draft action plans. |
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"Helmet on head, safety in heart" -
Walk Wise project collects feedback after helmet distribution
In December 2015, as part of the Walk Wise project, AIP Foundation and the Kaixian Traffic Police Department in Kaixian, Chongqing, China, organized a helmet safety event targeted especially at motorcycle taxi drivers. In order to improve the safety awareness of these drivers, road safety knowledge was introduced in this event and 130 helmets were distributed. On April 15th, 2016, the Walk Wise project sent two volunteers to collect feedback and check the effectiveness of this helmet distribution. The overall results were that the drivers typically wore the high-quality helmets in the colder months between December and March, but then they reverted to their original low-quality helmets when the temperature started rising. They appreciate the high quality of the donated helmets, but they have low motivation to buy such helmets themselves. This feedback will serve to inform future AIP Foundation events aimed at advocating quality helmet use and will also be sent to the Kaixian Traffic Police Department for their consideration. |
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Related news: Driver crashes into pedestrians in China
China isn't known for its road safety - with more than 200,000 annual fatalities on the roads it's not difficult to see why - and the danger on the country's roads was evident yet again in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province on April 11. Footage captured by both a car dashboard camera and nearby surveillance cameras showed just what can happen during what appears at first to be a routine drive. The car on the outside lane seems to be going along normally as it approaches a crossroads. However, rather than slow down as it turns left, the car seemingly speeds up before crashing into a group of pedestrians on a zebra crossing. |
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