Vision Zero: global road safety news from Brake

Roads The Netherlands cuts daytime speed limits on motorways The daytime speed limit on motorways in the Netherlands will be cut to 100km/h (62mph) in a bid to tackle nitrogen oxide pollution. The reduction from the current limit of 130km/h follows a Dutch court ruling earlier this year, which found that current government policies breached European Union (EU) air quality regulations. The Dutch government plans to introduce the new speed limits in 2020, to give the Netherlands the joint lowest speed limit in the EU, alongside Cyprus. Read more

Road users Road safety sessions for children with disabilities Two international organisations are helping children with disabilities to learn about road safety. In Luban, Belarus, the Eastern Alliance for Safe and Sustainable Transport (EASST) worked with the country’s Auto Moto Touring Club BKA to bring road safety messages to a group of 50 children of different ages and abilities. The children took part in games, activities and discussions to learn about road danger, while parents were trained on choosing and fitting the right child seat. Read more In Vietnam, the AIP Foundation has helped nearly 200 pupils at a school in Ho Chi Minh City to learn about the importance of helmets for safe riding. The children were given new helmets and shown how to fit and wear them properly. AIP Foundation’s Safety Delivered programme aims to provide more than 5,000 helmets to students across seven schools in the region. The programme is also being rolled out in Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines and India. According to the World Health Organization, more than half of all deaths on the world’s roads are among the most vulnerable road users – pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists. In South-East Asia, riders of motorised two and three-wheelers represent 43% of all road deaths. Read more Vehicles New electric vehicle charging network launched The city of Bristol in the UK has launched a new, council-owned, public electric vehicle (EV) charging network (Revive) to coincide with the opening of the region’s first EV charging hub. The charging hub is the first of four planned for the Bristol region, each housing between four and eight rapid-charge points that can charge an EV up to 80% in 30 minutes. An additional 120 new or replacement charging points will be installed over the next year, and the majority of these will be supplied with 100% renewable energy. Revive is funded by the UK Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV) as part of the Go Ultra Low West (GULW) programme. The project is promoting electric vehicles as part of a drive towards Bristol being carbon neutral by 2030. Read more Raising awareness Youth associations engage with road safety in Iceland YOURS (Youth for Road Safety) has partnered with Iceland’s national search and rescue organisation, Landsbjörg, to host a road safety workshop for young people. Attendees discussed how they could get involved and address road safety issues facing them at a local and international level. They worked in peer groups to identify key road safety risk factors and ways to improve public awareness. Deaths from road traffic injuries are the single biggest killer of young people aged 5–29 around the world. Read more Road safety events 2–13 December 2019 – United Nations Climate Change Conference 2019 (UNFCCC COP25), Santiago, Chile 19–20 February 2019 – 3rd Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety 2020: Achieving goals 2030, Stockholm, Sweden 5–7 May 2020 – 2nd United Nations Global Sustainable Transport Conference, Beijing, China 4–8 October 2020 – ITS World Congress 2020: The New Age of Mobility, Los Angeles, USA