Por Bosco Marti Ascencio, chairman of Aleatica Foundation.
Mexico is in second place in Latin America for traffic-related fatalities, with more than 14,000 deaths a year. In addition to being the 9th cause of death in the country, the cost of traffic injuries fluctuates between 1.8 and 3.5 percent of the GNP.
If we compare traffic accidents in Mexico to elsewhere in the world, we find that road safety demands local actions and immediate global responses.
For instance, Mexico has 11.4 deaths in traffic accidents for every 100,000 inhabitants, a figure that drops to 4.4 and 2.4 in Australia and Spain, respectively. Getting to that level of road safety in Mexico would mean about 14,000 lives saved each year.
Aware that road safety has a direct impact on people’s wellbeing and life, Fundación Aleatica para la Seguridad Vial (Aleatica Foundation for Road Safety) was founded in November 2022, confirming our commitment to becoming a major agent of cultural change in the area of road safety, pushing for compliance with the goals of the United Nations’ Second Decade of Action for Road Safety.
Teamwork is key to achieving that. In the first six months, we have built a network of institutions to promote a public agenda aimed at making road safety a reality for everyone. We now belong to the Global Alliance of NGOs for Road Safety, which represents over 300 NGO members working for road safety in more than 100 countries; and we have formalized alliances with iRAP, Mexico’s National Autonomous University (UNAM), Valencia University’s Research Institute on Traffic and Road Safety, the Mexican Red Cross and others.
Another relevant step was the participation of the Aleatica Foundation in the 15th Edition of the Road Safety Conference held in late March by the European Association of Operators of Toll Road Infrastructures (ASECAP), whose network encompasses over 82,000 km of toll roads, bridges and tunnels in 18 European member countries.
ASECAP’s experience and pro-road-safety actions are a good starting point for reaching the road safety goals that we at Aleatica Foundation have set ourselves. For example, fatalities in the ASECAP network were reduced by 64% between 2001 and 2017, which is good progress.
Furthermore, ASECAP and its members have developed major efficient communication campaigns that are known globally and, I am sure, are essential to promote a cultural shift within the field. Our recognition reflects in our willingness to work together for road safety, both locally and globally.
One of the topics of greatest interest during the Conference was the study by Dr. Benny Briesemeister of Berlin International University, who explained, from different perspectives, how our brain works, why we act and react the way we do and how we should design neuroscience-based marketing campaigns to achieve desired behavior changes, a most important topic for reaching our goals.
The Aleatica Foundation is here to contribute to making the right to safe mobility a reality for everyone. Every individual and institution that wants to contribute to improving road safety and thereby aiding people’s wellbeing, can count on us. We are all road safety.
