Fundación MAPFRE, National Liaison for the European Road Safety Charter

In our role as National Liaison for the European Road Safety Charter, we encourage the implementation and exchange of good practices among the people and entities affiliated with the Charter in Spain (companies, associations, local authorities, universities and schools, etc.). Our goal is to mobilize both civil society and institutions to adopt effective measures to improve road safety, through concrete actions and initiatives.

We want you to sign up to this European initiative that can save many lives. That is why Fundación MAPFRE is encouraging you, the reader, to join the Charter so that, together, we can continue to promote and support actions that improve road safety.  We need your commitment to life.

By signing up to the European Charter, you will help to spread the idea that road safety is more than a common goal, it is a responsibility shared by all social actors.

But it will also help you raise awareness of your own road safety project. The Charter invites all its members to participate in the European Excellence in Road Safety Awards, offering them the opportunity to receive EU-wide recognition, share best practices in road safety and work together to prevent further fatalities on the roads.

A great example of these good practices are the fifteen initiatives that have been shortlisted for the 2023 edition of these awards, three in each of the five competition categories:

• Best use of data to promote road safety.
• Best road safety project for road users with reduced mobility.
• Best project promoting fitness to drive.
• Best project supporting road safety in the e-commerce sector.
• Urban Road Safety Award (open to municipal, city and regional authorities).

Among these finalists, in the data category, there are two Spanish initiatives, proof that companies and institutions in our country are continuously working to improve road safety, adhering to the charter and delivering life-saving initiatives:

• The General Directorate of Traffic’s DGT 3.0 platform. This is the DGT’s connected vehicle system that interconnects all road users and provides them with traffic information in real time to ensure safer and smarter mobility. Among its uses it is worth highlighting the V-16 connected signal, which will be mandatory from 2026. This is what sends the coordinates of incidents to the DGT 3.0 platform so that other drivers are aware of its existence and, in this way, avoid collisions with the drivers of vehicles that have broken down or had an accident.
• “Camí escolar, espai amic” [School route, friendly space] from Barcelona’s Public Health Agency (Agència de Salut Pública de Barcelona; ASPB) is a strategy that makes it easier for schoolchildren to walk to and from school, including changes in the environment to improve their safety. It is estimated that this initiative has annually prevented 16 collisions involving children and young people, 12 of which involved injured pedestrians between the ages of 0 and 16.

The chosen projects will be announced at the awards ceremony on October 19 in Brussels (Belgium), where we invite you to participate in person or online.

If you would like to know what happened in the previous edition and be inspired, here are the winners of the 2022 edition.

The European Road Safety Charter is an initiative of the European Commission, and is the largest civil society platform on road safety. Since it was founded in 2004, more than 3,500 public and private entities have committed to the Charter and, of these, nearly 1,000 are Spanish. If you want to know more about this great platform, its objectives and the reasons for becoming a member, download this explanatory document.

Join this key European network for improving road safety, where you can share best practices, pose challenges, propose solutions and collaborate… Road safety is something we must all work together to achieve.

If you would like to CONTACT US for more information or to resolve any doubts, write to: ersc@fundacionmapfre.org