Councils urged to prepare for road safety week

Date: 21/6/2011

Local authorities across the UK are being urged to get ready for 2011's Road Safety Week.

Scheduled to take place from November 21st to 27th 2011, the Brake campaign will this year put a particular focus on reducing the number of young people killed on the country's roads.

With a theme of Too Young to Die, the charity notes that younger Britons are more likely to lose their lives in a car crash than from any other cause, but that this is preventable.

It hopes that this year's campaign will be the biggest yet, as it falls during the first 12 months of the UN's Decade of Action for Road Safety.

This ten-year initiative includes the creation of a fund that can be used to direct finances from donors to help support injury prevention programmes in countries taking part around the world.

For Road Safety Week in the UK, Brake notes that community groups and councils can all get involved by staging events, while it is also a good time for professionals in the field to launch new initiatives and gain publicity.

The charity's Campaigns Director Julie Townsend says: "[Local authorities] carry out vital road safety work throughout the year and by linking to this national event they can further raise awareness in their communities and generate extra publicity for their valuable work."

Posted by Sarah Bailey