The Department of the Environment (DOE) in Northern Ireland has launched a new road safety initiative based on community engagement.
The new road safety Community Toolkit encourages people to “educate and debate the life-changing issue of road safety among their peers”, and is designed to enable organisations and community groups to bring road safety initiatives to people in their community.
The toolkit comprises resources to host and facilitate short group sessions about a variety of road safety issues including: a DVD with six different sessions; a booklet outlining the messages to be communicated during each session; step-by-step guides to using the templates; and advice on planning, promoting and evaluating events.
The material includes ‘crashed lives’ real life accounts of road collisions, a consultant detailing brain injury, and the PSNI interrogating mobile phone activity and outlining the law regarding careless driving.
Mark H Durkan, Northern Ireland’s environment minister, said: “I have been thinking hard about how we can do more (to reduce casualties). Empowering local communities for me is key. The Community Toolkit will do that, with vivid and easy to use aids. These will create debate and stimulate discussion, with local people taking responsibility for saving lives in their local area.”
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