Training

The event focuses on an initiative aimed at improving road safety for young people, especially e-scooter and e-bike users. A survey by Zavarovalnica Triglav showed that only a little over half of young people feel safe when riding an e-scooter, and many have already experienced accidents. The lack of protective clothing, helmets, and reflective accessories contributes to greater risks. In the "Ne bluzi, z glavo kruzi" (Don’t Play It Cool, Use Your Head) initiative, the Vozim Institute, Zavarovalnica Triglav, and Yootree Creative agency collaborated to encourage safer e-scooter use among young people. By working with design students, they created a unique collection, "Dejmo se videt" (Let's Be Seen), of reflective clothing that combines safety with modern style. The collection was presented on October 17, 2024, at Ljubljana Fashion Week.The students used innovative reflective materials to design fashionable yet safe products. The collection was presented at Ljubljana Fashion Week, where it gained significant attention. The goal was to raise awareness about the importance of visibility in traffic, especially during the autumn and winter months. The initiative continues with workshops and public events, aiming for the products to become part of young people’s everyday style. The main goal of the initiative is to reduce the risk of accidents and encourage young people to prioritize safety while maintaining their personal style.

Governments and administration need to do more to improve road safety. But, the statistics for road traffic accidents are still shocking. Around 90% of all road accidents are caused by human error. That means every year, about a million people die because of other people's mistakes, carelessness, or irresponsibility. So it makes you wonder, are we doing good enough for road safety? Safe Driving, aims to help and informing whole road users about every single issue in Road Traffic from A to Z.

The safety and interaction of cyclists during infrastructure conservation and repair works are significantly impacted by changes made, potentially leading to new conflicts between cyclist traffic and vehicles.
The BIKEFLOW project's objective is to enhance cyclist safety in critical areas identified within modified sections during ongoing conservation efforts. By employing video analytics and Artificial Intelligence, we can examine the movements and potential interactions of cyclists and vehicles. This technology utilizes video analysis to forecast safety levels before incidents happen, enabling the identification of vehicles, routes, and speeds, with the capability to present data in real-time or upon request. In light of these analyses, permanent cameras have been installed at the junction of N-110 and N-502 to conduct surrogate safety assessments. This involves applying various configurations to the route to analyze the behavior of road users (both vehicles and cyclists) and to train an AI model that determines the most suitable layout configuration. The findings are then applied to adjust signage, lower speed limits, establish protected lanes at critical junctures, or modify paths as necessary.

Between 2018 and 2022 there where 93 fatalities and 894 serious injury collisions in Irish roads which involved motorcyclists. No specific road safety programme aimed at motorcyclists existed at that time. It was identified that the vast majority of these collisions occurred over the Summer months and almost 50% at weekends and many involved leisure riders or those retuning to motorcycling. Ireland has a large number of rural roads, ideal for leisure riding but this also increases risk through road topography and additional hazards which adversely impact motorcycle safety compared to other road users.

Asociatia Drum Sigur analyzed and researched the following design errors:
- incorrect use of signs for yielding priority in intersections (Give Way and Stop signs) (error found in most countries of the world)
- the formulas used to calculate the length of acceleration/deceleration lanes at road junctions are incorrect (they do not take into account the impact of heavy vehicle traffic, as well as the volume of traffic flows) (error found worldwide)
- the use of staggered pedestrian crossings at traffic lighted intersections has negative effects on pedestrian traffic in most cases. (case analysis for all the staggered pedestrian crossings in Bucharest)
- identification of design and execution errors for T-type intersections, roundabouts, turbo-roundabouts or interchanges in some cities in Romania.
- analyzing some design errors on certain streets in Bucharest and proposing measures to improve road safety and traffic flow.

The main challenge is the reduction of road accidents as a function of driving behavior. In recent years, significant progress has been made and the rate of accidents has decreased, but further improvement is needed in drivers behavior and at the same time in the infrastructure which is already extremely improved. For this reason, we created the safe cycling training program to train future drivers: the children, in order to become responsible drivers in the future

As the statistics show, Greece has the highest ratio of motorcyclists per active population. The training for riding in public roads offered is not sufficient and the driving license examinations do not guarantee the adequacy of knowledge, skills and road behavior as shown by the number of accidents. A post-education process is lacking in millions of amateur A license riders and this becomes more urgent as the need for further training for those who use motorcycles as a work vehicle (delivery drivers) has arisen. Government agencies have special refresher courses for their employees but millions of motorcyclists ride without any additional training beyond the basic training they attended before obtaining their driving license.

The key objective is to improve the safety of learner drivers and provide a safe driving environment in which learners can practice safe driving skills. In primary research undertaken in 2018, 31% of Advanced Driving Instructors (ADIs) surveyed agreed that the Essential Driver Training programme (EDT) in Ireland did not provide a safe driving environment for learner drivers. Although it is illegal, driving unaccompanied is regularly done by a large percentage of learner drivers. As part of Phase 1 of the Road Safety Strategy (RSS) 2021-2024 a goal has been set to eliminate unaccompanied driving in Ireland by Q4 2024. The Behaviours and Attitudes Survey (2019) found 39% of learner drivers drive unaccompanied. In 2022, 5,929 learner drivers received penalty points for driving unaccompanied.

Ireland has a population of 5.5 million people, on average per year we have 11 fatalities and 45 serious injuries from road collisions with drivers pre-test (2007-2021 data). 80% of fatal collisions involved learner drivers who were driving unsupervised, while 75% of serious injury collisions involved unsupervised learner drivers. We know from research undertaken that collisions involving learner drivers reduce by 80% whilst accompanied. No one should die while learning to drive.

Motorcycle drivers are often involved in accidents or the outcome is worsened because of lack of skills. Our goal is to improve the skills and techniques of everyday motorcycle riders to better handle emergency situations and/or prevent driving off the road. The amount of driving lessons in driving schools is not sufficient and the quality varies. Also, there are plenty of riders who got their license a long time ago where the training was non-existent. Fortunately the situation is getting better but is still far from perfect.

From the first of September 2022, MKIF Magyar Koncessziós Infrastruktursa Fejlsztó Zrt took over the operation, maintenance and development of 1,237 km of existing Hungarian expressways.

When analyzing the accidents recorded by our traffic surveillance cameras on domestic expressways, we noticed that it is important to draw attention to traffic safety in our communication (keeping a following distance, observing the speed limit near work areas, protecting our colleagues, early education of children/young adults in safe traffic) and traffic -culture (littering, driving in an egoistic style that endangers others, early education of children/young adults on responsible driving).