All organisations requiring staff to travel as part of their work are being urged to get involved in Road Safety Week 2010 (22-28 November) to help raise awareness of the need for slower speeds in communities to help reduce on roads.

Road Safety Week is organised by Brake, the road safety charity, with the support of the Department for Transport, and many business organisations.

The theme of this year’s Road Safety Week is ‘Kids Say Slow Down’, and children will be holding media launches in major UK cities telling drivers that ‘20 miles (30 kilometres) an hour is plenty’ in towns and villages. According to the official ‘Road Casualties Great Britain: 2008’ publication, an estimated 12 people are killed by drivers going above the speed limit or too fast for the conditions every week in the UK, making speed the biggest killer on our roads and devastating communities.

Dr Will Murray, Research Director at Interactive Driving Systems said: Road Safety Week is all about encouraging international, national, regional and local awareness-raising, including business and community initiatives, communications and events to help improve road safety. In our experience over many years working with the likes of British Telecommunications (BT), Nestlé, Royal Mail, Wolseley and others we believe that work-related road safety is an excellent conduit for community road safety and are encouraging as many organisations as possible to participate’.

Organisations can support the week in a variety of simple ways, examples of which are show at www.roadsafetyweek.org

As well as promoting Road Safety Week, Interactive Driving Systems is also further supporting the initiative by making available the following research paper:

Murray W and Watson B. Work-related road safety as a conduit for community road safety. Journal of the Australasian College of Road Safety, May 2010, Vol 21 (5), p65-71.

Please email will.murray@virtualriskmanager.net for a free copy.

Author: Dr Will Murray, research director at Interactive Driving Systems