5 August 2019
3 Mins read

Road Safety Week 2019 encourages everyone to ‘Step Up’

The theme for this year's Road Safety Week has been announced and it will encourage everyone in Britain to 'Step Up for Safe Streets'.

Set to take place between November 18th and 24th 2019, the event is organised by the charity Brake with funding from the Department for Transport, and the sponsor for this year has been revealed as Specsavers.

Among the topics will be highlighting how forward-thinking road and vehicle design can prevent human error from causing death or serious injuries on the roads.

This is something at the forefront of manufacturers' minds too, with many brands now focusing on intelligent features such as automatic braking and lane control on their newest vehicles.

Meanwhile, governments remain committed to making major highways smart and providing instant information on things like traffic jams for drivers.

Brake said someone is killed or seriously injured every 20 minutes on a British road and it wants to use Road Safety Week to encourage commitment to change.

Director of campaigns Joshua Harris added: "Road Safety Week provides a unique opportunity, every year, to focus the public, organisations' and policymakers' attention on the vital issue of road safety."

Meanwhile, Specsavers is using its participation to remind drivers to get an eye test every two years, something around one in four people currently fail to do. The organisation pointed out vision can deteriorate gradually until it poses a danger on the roads without motorists even realising.

Last year's Road Safety Week focused on being 'Bike Smart'. The event dates back to 1997 and aims to inspire communities to take action and to promote messages that could save lives.

Brake continues to campaign that road crashes are not accidents and are instead preventable events.