Dubai: A new traffic safety campaign was launched in Dubai on the ‘World Day for Safety and Health at Work’ to raise awareness on safe driving in residential communities.
Caltex Havoline and RoadSafetyUAE teamed up to raise awareness on ‘No Speeding’ in residential areas.
On Saturday, RoadSafetyUAE said international studies suggest that three out of 10 crashes happen within 1.5km from home.
It added that most research has concluded that the reason why so many accidents take place near home is that there is a comfort zone associated with driving in one’s own neighbourhood. Many drivers become complacent in practising safe driving behaviour because they feel they know an area well. It is similar to having the brain on “auto-pilot” and not fully focusing on driving as you would if you were driving further away from home.
Adriaan J. de Kok, area business manager for Gulf and Middle East at Chevron Al Khalij, said: “Motorists must display exemplary behaviour to their neighbours, families and children. With Caltex Havoline, a brand of Chevron Lubricants, we want to bring to life our commitment to creating safer neighbourhoods. To celebrate the ‘World Day for Safety and Health at Work’, we launch our initial activity by inviting our staff to take a pledge against speeding in residential communities. We also extend this invitation to all the companies with whom we do business, inviting their staff to pledge as well.”
He also invited the wider community to take the pledge on www.roadsafetyuae.com/speeding-residential-areas-caltex-havoline-pledge/. In phase two of this initiative, there will be a series of community events in Dubai’s biggest residential areas.
Thomas Edelmann, managing director of RoadSafetyUAE, said: “We recommend that when driving close to home, we must not be fooled into having a false sense of security. Drivers need to be twice as cautious when driving near home and be on the lookout for distracted and careless drivers. We welcome the encouragement of our CSR partners Caltex Havoline to focus on the important topic of ‘No Speeding’ in residential communities, and we are also well aware of other forms of reckless driving in residential areas linked to pedestrian safety: entering a road before checking if it is clear, parking and reversing, disobeying stop and yield signs, noise pollution, not using seat belts, driving distractions and so on.”
