FIA REGION IV ORGANISES ROAD SAFETY COURSE FOR MEMBER CLUBS IN LATIN AMERICA
Within the framework of the International Transport Forum (ITF) ‘Safer City Streets’ meetings held in Guadalajara, Mexico, FIA Region IV carried out a road safety course, with the support of the FIA Road Safety Grants Programme and Delft University.
Aimed at FIA Region IV Member Clubs, the in-person training was attended by participants from 11 countries in Latin America: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay. The Canadian Automobile Association (CAA) and the Jamaica Automobile Association (JAA) from FIA Region III also took part in the course.
Specialists and government representatives from different countries exchanged valuable experiences and shared objectives and solutions to common problems while FIA Clubs provided advice to local governments for the design of road safety plans and management strategies.
Leandro Perillo, from FIA Region IV, explained: "The objectives of the course are for FIA Club technicians to have the tools to design and implement road safety activities and work on evidence-based interventions, as well as to understand in depth what a safe system is and the concept of shared responsibility".
Carla Medina, from the National Traffic Safety Commission of Chile, declared: "The course is very useful to deepen knowledge and tools that we could develop, not only to empower cities in Chile to join this network of safer cities, but also to deepen the relationship and collaboration with the FIA, as well as with cities and local governments".
For his part, Fabricio Gonzáles, representative of the Municipality of Guatemala, said that the meeting allowed "to bring together the efforts of the different institutions on road safety issues, train, participate and relate with other countries in order to understand the needs we have, compare them with those of others and how they have been solved".
Quito Metropolitan Transit Agency Director Laura Silvana Vallejo Páez agreed with him, stating: "We have learned lessons, we have travelled the road. Joining efforts between countries makes us bigger and allows us to establish synergies".
Likewise, Wilfredo Giménez, from the Touring y Automóvil Club Paraguayo (TACPy), commented that they analysed "different strategies to implement in the field of road safety, aiming at the prevention of crashes" and Ana Dávila, from the Automóvil Club del Ecuador (ANETA), acknowledged that the course provided the Club with tools to continue working "on road safety with our partners on impactful projects and long-term campaigns in our country".
After four online sessions, the training has successfully come to an end.