Driver Hire is once again showing its support for Road Safety Week, which takes place 16th – 22nd November.
Organised by Brake, the national road safety charity, the aim of Road Safety Week is to raise awareness of road safety issues. Whilst still having some of the safest roads in Europe, the number of deaths and injuries has not reduced significantly over the past decade. The most recent Department for Transport (DfT) figures (provisional figures for 2019) show that there were 1748 reported fatal accidents last year, a figure that has been largely static since 2012.
The theme for this year’s Road Safety Week is ‘No Need to Speed’. Highlighting the fact that road crashes are the biggest killer of young people worldwide, Brake’s campaign also reveals that more than 6 children are seriously hurt or killed every day on Britain’s roads.
Bringing these numbers down is something that everyone can support. And speed is a critical factor because a relatively small increase in speed brings with it an exponential increase in the risk of injury. For example, if a child is hit by a car travelling at 27mph, the impact is equivalent to falling from the third floor of a building. At 18mph, it’s more like falling from the first floor.
There are other benefits to focusing on speed too. A faster vehicle is more noise and more pollution, reducing the quality of the environment we all live in. And with an increase in wear and tear, driving faster than necessary costs the vehicle owner more to run in the long-term too.
So in Road Safety Week 2020, Driver Hire is proud to join many other responsible businesses around the UK in shouting out that there is “No Need to Speed!”.
To find out more about Road Safety Week, visit www.roadsafetyweek.org.uk