Save Our Lives

Lorry drivers and bicyclists ... Freight companies and school children ... Public transport officials and pedestrians.

These very different sets of people aren’t often spoken of together, and it’s even less common to see them working together as part of the same team. But, in fact, these groups have a lot in common: they all rely on efficient and safe mobility as part of daily life.

Now a central European-wide project is linking these diverse sets of road users throughout central Europe around another set of goals also not often uttered in the same breath: road safety and sustainable mobility.

Known as Save our Lives – A Comprehensive Road Safety Strategy for Central Europe, the 3 million Euro project aims to improve road safety within eight countries of the Central European Space with a long-term vision to free the region of road crash death and injury. The project was launched in 2010 by twelve participating partner organizations, including the Global Road Safety Partnership.

Co-financed by the European Union, the Save Our Lives project supports 12 pilot communities in eight countries to strengthen their approaches to road safety and sustainable mobility in order to prevent death and injury caused by road crashes. Save Our Lives does this by helping communities to strengthen road safety management  capacity, increase the skills of road safety professionals, understand road safety issues and priorities, develop targeted, visible communications to increase political engagement, and raise public awareness and commitment. The project also focuses on developing transnational tools and networks, strengthening coordination and planning, and implementing long-term measures on-the-ground.

This project is defined not only by single activities but by an entire structural approach that allows local partners to create and continue sustainable, locally managed solutions.

- Claus Koellinger, with Austrian Mobility Research (FGM-Amor), an Austrian firm that specializes in environmentally sound mobility solutions and a Save Our Lives partner