Good practices

La alta siniestralidad vial sufrida por los trabajadores que emplean motocicletas durante su trabajo. Reducir la siniestralidad vial con motocicletas, mejorar la formación en seguridad vial y transmitir buenas prácticas a todos las personas trabajadoras que empleen motocicletas en su día a día. Todas las empresas que están asociadas a umivale y sus trabajadores. Nuestro público objetivo son más de 46.300 empresas y 848.300 personas trabajadoras en las mismas.

66% of road accidents in Slovenia happen in built-up areas (data for 2020). This means that two out of every three traffic accidents take place on roads where the most vulnerable users are present – pedestrians, children, old people, cyclists. This also means that accidents happen within local communities – both the person causing the accident and the victim are often from the same community. Slovenia is a very dispersed country, with 2 million inhabitants living spread out in 212 municipalities, which are in charge of local roads in their specific areas. According to research data, localised, locally adapted campaigns addressing road safety are 150% more successful than general, national ones. This means that all of us participants in traffic are more motivated to be part of traffic solutions in our community – where our children are on the street. Can all this be used in planning and implementing sustainable solutions in local communities? Is it possible to implement a programme that is custom-made for specific problems of each local community, which at the same time is applicable to all local communities in Slovenia and beyond? Can we do anything to equip, empower and motivate local communities to create their own safer future? Zavarovalnica Triglav, the oldest and biggest insurance company in Slovenia, approached this well-known problem in a different way. Our line of business – through car insurance – is indeed so closely tied in to road safety that we see preventive safety activity as part of our core business. We brought together the best technological partners in the field of road innovation, our own knowledge from years of observing damage events, and leading experts in the field of road safety. With this reinforcement we linked up with decision-makers and other key groups in each of the local communities, invited the local media to participate and set ourselves an ambitious goal: to achieve long-term, sustainable and measurable improvements in road safety in local communities. We realised that in traffic safety we were in for the long haul, so we set out a multi-year, long-term programme that we are building on. "A core goal of the ""Together for road safety – empowering communities 360°"" is to combine the best partners that Slovenia has to offer in the field of road safety and implementation of a modular programme, which in the 360° model addresses all target groups in the local community for sustainable, measurable and long-term progress in the area of traffic safety. The aim is to secure a measurable long-term change in road users and a measurable change/improvement in traffic statistics in the individual local community. Objectives 2016 – 2021 Local community: Enter into sustainable, long-term cooperation with at least 44 Slovenian municipalities (20% of all municipalities) to achieve lasting change at critical black spots in the individual community: 1) First stage: objectives associated with negative statistics and critical infrastructure points in the individual local community: o Reduce the number of speeding drivers in the vicinity of schools, nursery schools and on the way to school – by 5% o Reduce the number of accidents at accident black spots, since most accidents happen because of poor visibility – by 50% o Eliminate fatalities at railway level crossings that are marked only by a St Andrew's cross – 0 fatalities one year after installation o Improve the safety of pedestrian crossings near schools and nursery schools – increase the attention of pedestrians by 10% 2) Second stage: objectives associated with changing the behaviour of drivers in the local community. a. Gather, research and analyse various driving habits of long-term drivers in Slovenia – conduct research in 10/12 regions b. Enable long-term drivers, who are the most frequent cause of traffic accidents, to renew their practical traffic knowledge within their environment, on roads where they drive every day – in 12/12 regions c. Ensure that drivers who already have a driving licence can renew forgotten or acquire new knowledge about road and traffic regulations – achieve at least 10%, i.e. 130,000 Slovenian drivers d. Offer drivers in local communities who are safer a reward in the form of a discount on their insurance premium. Primary: Entities responsible for road safety in municipalities: Roads in villages and small towns (equipment, maintenance) are generally operated by municipalities, which are faced with a shortfall in funding for even the most urgent maintenance. Additional traffic signalling and the elimination of blind spots and areas where visibility is poor are therefore often deficient. Drivers in local communities: Slovenian drivers do not adjust their driving sufficiently to take account of driving conditions in built-up areas. In 2020, 66% of all road accidents occurred in such areas. Two of the most common causes of accidents were a failure to give way and excessive speed (Source: Slovenian Traffic Safety Agency). Those who most frequently cause fatal traffic accidents are aged 45 to 64 years – in other words middle-aged people who have been driving for many years. These drivers passed their test 25 to 40 years ago. In that time the transport infrastructure, cars and road traffic regulations have all changed. These drivers are not required to refresh their driving knowledge and skills. Primary schools in the communities: Primary schools are generally located in the centre of built-up areas, although pressures of space mean that they can be found outside those areas as well. Road safety issues are addressed through various primary school programmes organised by the police and the Traffic Safety Agency. Because of the relatively small size of local environments (primary schools have an average of 200 pupils according to the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia), pupils most commonly walk to school unaccompanied. They are therefore active road users from an early age (the law permits children to walk to school on their own from the age of seven). Secondary: Traffic police in local communities: In smaller Slovenian towns or villages, station-based police officers are responsible for road safety. This is usually a very small team who work with the municipality and their parent police station to ensure road safety and carry out traffic controls. The problem faced by local police officers is mainly one of staff shortages, a lack of time to spend in the field or a lack of tools to help them take action at a critical section at the right time. Local media: Local media, especially radio stations, are still the most influential media when it comes to local issues in Slovenia. We picked the most popular radio stations and other local media for each region or community and invited them to address their listeners to help improve very specific accident black spots in the local environment.

EU RISM Directive requires member states carry out proactive road safety inspections. While TII has a long history of developing standards and implementing safety programmes they were mainly based around patterns of historical collision data. This would be considered a retrospective approach. Since the adoption of the Road Infrastructure Safety Management (RISM) Directive, Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) has developed a new standard that sets out the processes around road safety inspections (RSI). The programmes, based on the standard, relies on a visual inspection along the route. Engineers versed in road design and with experience I road safety audits conduct these surveys. However, despite their expertise, early analysis of the data exposed some inconsistencies in how 'risk' as assigned to items noted in the RSI. The objective was to build in a way to achieve greater consistency around the proactive risk rating process. At one level the target audience were just the engineers involved in the inspection process but as we discussed the new insist from our data analysis it became obvious that other areas within our organisation could make use of our risk rating programme. Some of our results are now form part of a vehicle restrained course. See https://www.engineersireland.ie/listings/event/7353. In addition, TII have prepared a paper for the 2020 International Symposium on Highway Geometric Design (now postponed to 2022 due to COVID-19). This paper (https://www.tii.ie/technical-services/safety/road-safety/2020-ISHGD-Motorway-RSI-Ireland.pdf) discussed TII's proactive safety programme and the risk rating process on the entire motorway network in Ireland, circa 1,000 km, as we believed our work has a wider audience.

In Ireland, we love our phones but we know disconnecting is important. On average we spend 5 hours every day looking at our phones and 4/5 people admit to using their mobile phone while driving. Even though using a mobile phone behind the wheel when driving makes you 23 times more likely to have an accident, we still do it. So we want o change peoples behaviours. The Toyota FaceItDown app was built using technology to reinforce positive behaviour change by rewarding users for driving with their mobile phones facing down. The more kilometres a user drives with their phone facing down (and without ever touching it or picking it up) the more points they are awarded at the end of their journey. The gamification system of rewarding points for app usage was all built according to gamification best practice around one single behaviour/action; the act of facing down your phone while you're driving. Our objective of the app is to change peoples behaviours and make Irish roads safer for everyone. Target: All drivers, not just Toyota as we all share the road together. We know younger males are the worst offender and they remain our key target audience.

Drinking and riding an e-scooter is an entrenched problem facing our sector and, to date, no-one has adequately tackled the issue. Through our taxi partnerships feature TIER aims to help address that major road safety challenge. Alcohol consumption has been identified as an important risk factor resulting in road traffic injury or death. A recent study found that 20% of injuries sustained by e-scooter users were sustained while under the influence of alcohol. This research (and other studies) indicate that traumatic brain injuries (TBI) are among the most severe injuries sustained by e-scooter users that ride under the influence of alcohol. The same study found that alcohol consumption increases the risk of a TBI fivefold while operating an e-scooter compared to a sober user. E-scooter injury analysis in the US cities of Santa Monica and San Diego suggest a strong correlation between alcohol consumption and crash severity. TIER's feature is part of our programme of work that aims to prevent drink riding amongst the micro-mobility sector. The objectives of the anti-drinking and riding campaign are as follows: 1. Remind riders about the dangers of drinking and riding and e-scooter. 2. Encourage riders to take a taxi home if they have then drinking, rather than take a TIER 3. Make it as easy as possible for riders to get home quickly if they have been drinking. The target audience of the campaign is any e-scooter user who is likely to use our service whilst under the influence of alcohol.