Grass Roots Communities And RAC Come Together For National Road Safety Week

As part of National Road Safety Week (May 15-22), RAC partnered with the Road Safety Commission to sponsor a range of grassroots events across metro and regional WA to increase community awareness around staying safe on our roads.

Ranging from Boddington to Kununurra, towns like York, Derby, Toodyay, Kellerberin and Cunderdin engaged in important conversations, events and activations around road safety.

It wasn’t all lectures and presentations though, with a focus on engaging the community in fun and informative ways, like:

• A cycling safety community breakfast;
• Walk / Ride to school events followed by the RAC Around the Roads education program;
• Child car restraint installation workshops;
• Car maintenance and skills workshops for young drivers
• Meet and greets with local police;
• Skateboarding and scooter road safety workshops
• Fluro Friday – encouraging the use of hi vis equipment for pedestrians and cyclists at night;
• Colouring and wheelie bin sticker competitions; and
• Coffee pit stops inviting regional drivers to sign the ‘drive so others survive’ pledge.

It’s all part of RAC’s Vision 2030, for a safer, sustainable and connected future for all West Aussies. The involvement of community volunteer groups is integral to this vision and supporting all travellers, including motorists, passengers, cyclists, pedestrians, people who scoot and motorcyclists.

One of those events took place last weekend in York at the Skate Park at Avon Park, which was introduced last year and has been a hit with the community, especially kids between 6-18.

Along with celebrating the skate park with live music and giveaways, the National Road Safety Week event was the perfect opportunity to talk road rules, with a focus on skateboards, bikes, scooters and increasingly popular e-scooters. This was especially important, with more children using the roads to and from the park.

The crew from Freestyle Now were also on-hand for some thrilling bike displays, and to present to kids in York on how to use equipment safely, being alert on country roads and the safe use of e-bike/scooters.

The Country Women’s Association’s Dawn Ainsworth (below) also spoke on the importance of helmets, using eggs to explain how fragile the human skull is.

RAC threw its support behind National Road Safety Week with a number of other initiatives, including a week-long projection on the RAC Arena’s building façade, decaling the Rescue Helicopter with a yellow ribbon for the month of May, and teaming up with iconic WA sporting brands West Coast Eagles, Fremantle Dockers, and West Coast Fever to encourage fans to take the pledge to drive so others survive.

It’s not too late to submit your pledge to help make our roads safer for all, visit the RAC Website for more info.

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This article is sponsored by RAC and very happily endorsed by us. Please see our Editorial Policy for more info.