Making kids aware of trucks

By Colin Windell 

Pedestrian fatalities on South African roads are a major problem and Volvo Trucks is on a mission to teach children how to behave around trucks.

Volvo Trucks leads a charge to improve pedestrian safety

Every single day pedestrians around South Africa's are being killed by vehicles on the roads with an estimated 40% of all road deaths last year being pedestrians.

Many of these could have been avoided had the strollers simply known more about dealing with trucks, buses and cars on the road – some 16,3% of those pedestrians killed were children younger than 10 years and 20,8% children 14 years or younger.

In this, the National Transport Month of October, Volvo’s initiative, called ‘Stop. Look. Wave.’ is specifically aimed at helping children understand how to best behave around trucks, buses and cars, and to ultimately keep them safe on the roads.

The transportation sector is vital to our economy and our growing nation but the statistics also highlight challenges that need to be addressed, such as the high road death toll.

“Too many of these accidents involve heavy commercial vehicles. And children, unfortunately, being the most vulnerable road users need to be empowered through road safety education initiatives. To this end, we at Volvo Trucks work on various road safety initiatives, as well as develop innovative safety features for our products with the goal of making roads safer for all road users,” says Marcus Hörberg, Vice President, Volvo Group Southern Africa.

The campaign was launched in South Africa in 2015 and regained momentum in June this year and has since reached more than 9 300 children nationally.

“The initiative was successfully reinvigorated with the help of staff from our truck centres and head office staff that went to local schools in their areas and did the training with the kids. We also offer the training material as a download for free on our website and would like to encourage parents and community leaders alike to help us empower the nations children and save their lives,” says Valentia Hobbs, Marketing Director at Volvo Trucks Southern Africa.

The training material was specially developed to facilitate dialogues with the children in a fun and interactive manner, through various song and dance activities.

”Our goal is to reach 10 000 children by the end of the year,” adds Hobbs. “As one of the country’s leading vehicle manufactures, we believe it is our obligation and privilege to campaign for more awareness around road safety, especially when it comes to children.” she concludes.

"Cities bring people together, but with so many people and vehicles sharing the same space, pedestrians and cyclists suffer a large number of the serious traffic injuries and fatalities. This issue needs to be tackled on a wide front through both technology and collaboration," says Carl Johan Almqvist, Traffic & Product Safety Director at Volvo Trucks.