GRSP’s Information and Sharing Day whets the appetite for more road safety action

Each year at the time of its constitutional Steering Committee meeting, GRSP opens its figurative doors to interested parties for the annual ‘GRSP Information and Sharing Day’. This year’s event was held on June 13, hosted by Aon at the Grange City Hotel in London. The event saw the GRSP team welcome its members and close to a dozen representatives from non-member organizations to mingle in an informal setting, share details of achievements and challenges, and explore opportunities to collaborate more broadly toward improving road safety.

The event is designed to present an opportunity for members and external parties to learn more about the role GRSP plays in building partnerships which work towards improving road safety outcomes in cities and communities all around the world. This year participants were presented with a showcase of our work with members, presented from the members’ perspective, by the members themselves. Amongst the presentations:

• Mr Bernd Marx, Group General Manager, Road Safety from Shell shared the successes of the Shell, GRSP and Myanmar Red Cross Society’s multi-pronged campaign in Myanmar, which has recently been recognized by the Myanmar Ministry of Construction as having contributed to a 30% reduction in road traffic crashes within the intervention site.
• Mr Nick List from Zurich Commercial Insurance spoke on the ‘Insurance for Safer Roads’ initiative, convened by GRSP, which has brought together insurers and brokers from around the world to identify ways for the insurance sector to become more involved in preventative road safety action.
• Darren Lindsay from Michelin detailed the GRSP-led Road Safety Ambassador project which is engaging and empowering youth in South Africa, as well as the city-based project partnering with Vale Foundation and the mayoral office in Canaa dos Carajas, Brazil.
• Mr Fernando Camarero from Mapfre Foundation gave insight into Mapfre’s open access ‘Tu Empresa’ programme which seeks to improve people’s quality of life and reduce the number of traffic crashes, whether travelling between home and work or performing work-related tasks.
• Ms Anne-Valerie Troy also reiterated the recent news that Total and Michelin are joining forces to launch an ambitious major road safety education program for 10-18 year-olds via their corporate foundations. This project, developed with the support of Global Road Safety Partnership, aims to reach 100,000 young people over a 3-year period.

GRSP CEO Mr Dave Cliff (pictured) closed the day with a call to action to members and non-members to seek out opportunities to share good practice, to take learnings from our successes and act!