News & Blog
'My brothers and sisters' - Joel's road safety expression from Kenya
Back in 2012, Joel and small group of his contemporaries undertook the first ever YOURS Training of Facilitators workshop in Nairobi, Kenya. Joel went away and trained hundreds of his peers across Kenya through his work with the Kenya Red Cross. As he delved deeper into road safety, Joel connected his passion for road safety with his passion to express through poetry. He recently submitted a poem entitled 'My brothers and sisters' to be featured here on the YOURS website as a periodic feature. He continues his commitment to road safety.
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Why the Bird Box challenge is as stupid as it sounds!
Netflix has issued an injury warning about the viral fad spawned by its thriller. Over the December and early January period, Bird Box was a cultural hit, with thousands of viewer catching 'Netflix Original'. However, a Bird Box challenge has emerged with people blindfolding themselves and doing everyday tasks against warnings.
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Study shows that driving sensors can improve driver habits - guest blog
We are happy to share a guest blog from Raine Jenkins who writes about all things technology via Techiedoodlers.com. She is a passionate techie blogger and often writes thought provoking articles about the state of technology and society. She recently wrote a special guest blog for our website.
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Just the facts: A .05 BAC law prevents deaths and injuries on our roads
Our friend Bella Dinh-Zarr, board member at the National Transportation Safety Board, USA and long term road safety campaigner has written about the effects of blood alcohol concentraition laws (BAC) for The Hill, the newspaper for and about the USA Congress, with breaking stories from Capitol Hill, K Street and the White House.
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Riding across the country to promote helmet use in India - TRAX
A young professional driver recently took to the roads and streets of India to promote the use of standardized helmets. Ms Pooja Yadav, an expert rider on the two wheels of a motorcycle joined with TRAX, a national road safety NGO based in Delhi, India. Her mission: to ride across India, stopping at strategic stop-offs to meet with decision makers, NGO leaders and create mass public awareness at events.
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Commonwealth Road Safety Initiative launches with a focus on youth
Every year road crashes in Commonwealth countries result in around 300,000 fatalities and remain the single largest cause of death of young people. The Commonwealth brings together 53 countries facing a wide diversity of road safety performance. Road fatality rates range from 3 per 100,000 population to above 30 per 100,000. In all Commonwealth countries the level of road deaths remains unacceptably high and there is a shared challenge to substantially reduce this predictable and preventable tragedy.
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Global Status Report on Road Safety 2018 has been published - new statistics
The number of road traffic deaths continues to climb, reaching 1.35 million in 2016. However, the rates of death relative to the size of the world’s population has stabilized in recent years. The data presented in the new report show that progress has been achieved in important areas such as legislation, vehicle standards and improving access to post-crash care. This progress has not, however, occurred at a pace fast enough to compensate for the rising population and rapid motorization of transport taking place in many parts of the world. At this rate, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) target 3.6 to halve road traffic deaths by 2020 will not be met.
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Alliance Advocates Program Extends to Asia - a collaboration with YOURS
21 grassroots road safety NGO leaders from eight countries in Asia became the newest cohort of trainees to join the Alliance Advocates Program, a growing movement of NGOs that is championing a low-cost, evidence-based approach to road safety. It is the first time that the Alliance Advocate training, organized by the Global Alliance of NGOs for Road Safety (the Alliance), has been run in Asia. The trainees, known as Alliance Advocates , will strengthen their data, project management, and advocacy skills through a practical, innovative demonstration project. The programme, developed and delivered in collaboration with YOURS is the fourth training programme run as part of the Alliance Empowerment Programme.
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Reporting back from Safety 2018: global violence and injury prevention - Thailand
Earlier in the month, we were at the Safety 2018 conference in Bangkok, Thailand. The conference is a bi-annual conference bringing together experts from the field of violence and injury prevention. This year the conference, organized by the World Health Organization in partnership with the Government of Thailand culminating in the Bangkok Declaration. At the event, we took place in a special "State of the Art Session" on road safety for children and young people as well as having a presence with booth materials.
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YOURS runs panel on "Meaningful Youth Engagement in Road Safety"
On 19 November 2018, YOURS co-organized a high-level international road safety conference in Malta. The Government of Malta and the European Regional Office of the World Health Organization asked YOURS to Chair and bring together a panel that would discuss meaningful youth engagement in designing a safe mobility system. In other words, discuss the importance of youth involvement build in policymaking, implementation, and evaluation.
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Remembering our Road Traffic Victims: World Day of Remembrance
The World Day of Remembrance (WDoR) for Road Traffic Victims is set annually on the third Sunday of November, commemorating the lives of those lost to road tragedies. YOURS will join an event for the general public on Sunday 18 November at the Point Shopping Mall, Tigne Sliema in Malta from 3PM onwards. Monday the 19th YOURS will be running a special panel session entitled, "Youth have their say" as part of The World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims 2018 conference in Malta.
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We will be live from Safety 2018 - World Safety Conference, Bagkok, Thailand
Next month (November 2018) we will be attending the Safety 2018 - the 13th World Conference on Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion (Safety 2018) will bring together over 1000 of the world's leading researchers, practitioners, policy-makers and activists to share information and experiences and to discuss solutions. The conference's major theme is “Advancing injury and violence prevention towards SDGs”.
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Young drivers who use cannabis at higher risk of collisions for at least 5 hours - study
You may have been lliving under a rock to not hear the news that Canada has legalized recreational marijuana aka cannabis, pot, weed, Mary Jane. Canada has been through some rigorous political movements to take this step and while millions rejoice, there comes added warnings about road safety. Driving impaired is a serious issue in road safety and a new study from McGill University, Canada has issued findings that show young drivers are once again at particular risk on the road if driving under the influence of cannabis.
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How to Turn a Car Town into a Cycling City - a Dutch example
The following is excerpted from “ Building the Cycling City ,” by Melissa and Chris Brunlett, published by Island Press. In it, the authors elevate examples from five Dutch cities as “blueprints” for creating an accessible urban cycling culture and explore how those examples have inspired other cities around the world.
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Youth will have their say at panel discussion - Malta road safety event
Next month, we will be running a special panel session entitled, "Youth have their say" as part of The World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims 2018 conference in Malta. The event is themed around “Roads with stories”, and is being organized by the World Health Organization in Malta. As part of the day, the panel discussion will bring together a range of youth voices and has been organized in collaboration between the Malta Medical Students Association and YOURS.
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Brian's Column: Why is public transport in developing contexts so yikes?
Brian is back with his monthly column giving his unique perspective on youth and road safety issues in Africa. Often, our perspective of African issues is shrouded by the media or stereotypes. Brian gives us a first hand opinion from the ground.
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Youth 2030: The UN Strategy on Youth - working with and for young people
A world in which the human rights of every young person are realized; that ensures every young person is empowered to achieve their full potential; and that recognizes young people’s agency, resilience and their positive contributions as agents of change. The Secretary-General tasked his Envoy on Youth, in conjunction with the UN system and youth themselves, to lead development of a UN Youth Strategy. Its aim: scale up global, regional and national actions to meet young people’s needs, realize their rights and tap their possibilities as agents of change.
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Youth road safety ambassadors make recommendations to the Vietnamese government
AIP Foundation and 15 youth road safety ambassadors from Thuy Loi University in Hanoi joined the Asian Development Bank and Safetipin App on a road safety data collection mission. The mission aimed to collect personal safety data around Hanoi’s Metro Line 3 through Safetipin’s parameters in order to make development recommendations to the government.
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Vision Zero for Youth: safer streets starting where youth walk and bike
Around the world, communities are committing to eliminating traffic fatalities and serious injuries, with an approach called Vision Zero. A growing group of these cities is focused on improving safety in school zones and other places where children and youth walk and bicycle. Vision Zero for Youth recognizes that starting with youth can be the catalyst to build community support for Vision Zero, and that Vision Zero should include a focus on youth.
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Jacob Smith joins us as a regional youth champion for North America
From participating in leadership opportunities in high school to establishing his own consulting firm where he works with national nonprofit organizations in advocacy, Jacob Smith remains passionate about promoting safety issues and youth leadership. “I am currently right now with various organizations. Most of them are youth participating organizations,” Smith stated. “Back in high school at Whitehouse High School, I was involved with FCCLA, which is Family, Career and Community Leaders of America. I went from serving as a national officer on the board of directors and now they are actually one of my clients. The organization is pretty strong in a lot of subjects, but ultimately it prepares students to make an impact in their families, careers and communities.”
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