The FIA Foundation participated in the 6th AIT & FIA American Congress in Asunción, Paraguay on 26 and 27 October, which was attended by more than twenty touring and automobile clubs from Central, South America and the Caribbean, the US and Spain. The meeting was presided over by Mr Max Mosley, President of the FIA, Mr Peter Doggwiler, Director General of the AIT/FIA and Mr Victor Rúben Dumot, President of the hosting Touring and Automobile Club of Paraguay which celebrated its 80th anniversary.
More and more automobile clubs in Latin America are taking on a road safety advocacy role in countries which are very often lacking a road safety culture both at a government and a community level. Several speakers at the congress introduced best practice programmes and campaigns such as the itinerant road traffic education bus and traffic park for children operated by the Automobile Club of Peru; the new driver training manual jointly developed by the club of Ecuador together with Peugeot; and road safety campaigns including the preparation of new road traffic legislation by the Touring and Automobile Club of Paraguay.
The representative of Costa Rica presented the “Por Amor use el Cinturón” campaign, the FIA Foundation’s pilot project to promote seatbelt use through legislation, police enforcement and an awareness campaign. Mr Elliot Coen of the Automobile Club of Costa Rica announced the preliminary results of an evaluation survey carried out in August 2004: an increase from a mere 21% seatbelt wearing rate among drivers prior to the campaign to 82% in August 2004 and an increase from 17% to 76% wearing rate among front seat passengers. Campaign materials and know-how from Latin American countries and their European and US counterparts were exchanged.
FIA Foundation’s Director of Road Safety, Rita Cuypers, explained how the Foundation’s global road safety advocacy activities which contributed to the first World Health Day on road safety and the UN Resolution on the Global Road Safety Crisis, may provide opportunities for the clubs in the Latin American region to help create a road safety community in their region. The Foundation is in discussions with CEPAL, the regional United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, to hold a regional road safety forum in 2005 in the spirit of the United Nations General Assembly and Stakeholders Forum events in April 2004 in New York.
Mr Mosley congratulated the Touring and Automobile Club of Paraguay for organising a very successful congress and said that the touring and automobile clubs in the region are clearly taking road safety to heart. ‘As a direct result of their efforts thousands of families will not have to fear a knock on the door because a loved one has been seriously injured or killed in a road traffic accident’, said Mr Mosley.
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