Road Safety Week: Celebrating our #RoadSafetyHeroes!
South Wales Fire and Rescue Service are proudly supporting the UK’s biggest annual road safety event, Road Safety Week (15th – 21st November 2021), coordinated by Brake, the road safety charity.
Road Safety Week inspires thousands of schools, organisations and communities to take action on road safety and for safe and healthy journeys every day. The focus of this year’s campaign is to celebrate ‘Road Safety Heroes’ and the heroic work of road safety professionals, and explaining how we can all play a part in making journeys safer for everyone.
How will South Wales Fire and Rescue Service be taking part?
Promoting road safety is a vital part of our missions to make South Wales safer, by reducing risk. Throughout the week, our Road Safety Team, alongside colleagues from South Wales Police, Gwent Police and local authorities, will be out positively engaging with members of the community through their joint ‘Operation Options‘ initiative alongside police and local authority colleagues.
Operation Options allows us to engage drivers and passengers who break the law by failing to wear their seatbelts. The offending road users will be offered the option of accepting a fine for the offence, or listening to an educational presentation delivered by the fire service on road safety and the dangers of poor decision making. Our safety presentation aims to highlight the importance of wearing a seat belt, even on short, familiar journeys, and how it can be the difference between life and death.
The team will also be delivering their ‘Domino Effect’ safety talk, with partners from Gwent Police, South Wales Police, GoSafe, to local schools and colleges to target younger people aged 15-25 years old and help keep them safer as they start getting behind the wheel.
South Wales Fire and Rescue Service Road Traffic Collision Reduction Manager, Nev Thomas said:
“Our organisation plays a crucial role in raising awareness of road safety across South Wales and Road Safety Week is a great opportunity for us to collaborate and work closely with our partners. By utilising our resources, we aim to save lives, prevent accidents and injuries and reduce the number of incidents in the areas we protect.
“At South Wales Fire and Rescue Service we see first-hand the impact and effect each incident has on our communities. By utilising initiatives like Operation Options, we can help educate members of the community and discourage unsafe road and driving habits, ultimately reducing the number of incidents on our roads.”
Jason Wakeford, Head of Campaigns at Brake, said: “Road Safety Week is the UK’s biggest annual road safety campaign and is a great opportunity to speak up for road safety. This year everyone can acknowledge and celebrate the heroic efforts of people working to save lives on roads across the country – and recognise that we can all be road safety heroes by using roads safely and taking actions for road safety in our families, schools, communities and where we work.
“We would urge everyone to visit the Road Safety Week website for loads of ways to take part in the campaign all this week.”
In addition to celebrating the work of our Road Safety Team, SWFRS will be sharing helpful advice across our social media platforms on how to stay safe on the roads, ranging from driving in wet and wintery weather to being mindful of cyclists and other road users! Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for the latest road safety advice and guidance, and to see what the team get up to during the week
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