Seat-belt management workshops held in Turkey

In late October 2011, within the Bloomberg Philanthropies Road Safety in 10 Countries project, the Global Road Safety Partnership organized two workshops on Seat-belts and Child Restraints Management for 70 management level road safety stakeholders in Turkey. Representatives of the traffic police, health departments, and transport and highway authorities joined the Chamber of Drivers, Turkish Red Crescent Society, universities, and non-governmental organizations to enhance their knowledge of seat-belts and child restraints use and prepare draft strategies for increasing their use.

“People in Ankara and Afyonkarahisar are enthusiastic about improving road safety in their regions,” said Andrew Pearce, Chief Executive of the Global Road Safety Partnership, who came to lead the workshops. “Raising the number of people who wear seat-belts is one of the most simplest and most effective measure to reduce numbers of deaths and injuries from crashes.”

Structured to follow the global good practice manual Seat-Belts and Child Restraints, the workshops allowed participants to explore topics such as the need for seat-belts and child restraints, assessing the situation, effective interventions to increase seat-belt and child restraints use, and programme evaluation. Participants also headed to local roads to observe seat-belt use among drivers and passengers.

After the workshops, participants reported an improved understanding of seat-belt and child restraint issues. The videos and documentaries shown, the observation exercise conducted, and the presentations used were particularly interesting to them. In addition, they expressed their intention to talk about the importance of seat-belts and child restraints with their families, friends, and colleagues. Participants also believed that the knowledge they gained would be useful to their organizations in planning future seat-belt and child restraint interventions.