Road safety was top of the agenda for the annual FIA American Congress held in Quito, Ecuador between 26 - 28 September.
Road traffic crashes in Latin America have increased by more than 8% during 2004/05 and with expanding motorisation and a continued lack of road safety culture, urgent action needs to be taken.
The automobile clubs consider it their mission to help reduce road traffic injuries and fatalities and believe that their expertise can contribute to making a difference. They are urging their governments to make road safety education compulsory in schools and to require certified driver training by law. Several clubs run educational programmes to familiarize school children with different road traffic situations at road traffic parks and by using road traffic education buses that travel all over the country. The host club of Ecuador presented its new campaign that aims to reach 100,000 children each year with a mobile school, called “Escuela Itinerante”, with technical support from the Spanish club RACE. Best practice examples on road safety campaigning and driver school training were provided by the Spanish automobile clubs RACC and RACE.
Lack of seat belt use and child restraint systems, drink driving and speeding were among the most frequently cited problems in Latin America. These are included in the messages of the FIA Foundation “Think before you Drive” campaign which was also presented at the conference. Automobile clubs from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela expressed their interest in participating in the Think Before You Drive campaign in 2006.
Presidents of the clubs attending the Congress also signed the FIA Foundation’s Think Global Road Safety pledge, expressing their concern to governments about rising road traffic injuries in their region.