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On 10 December 2019, the Automobile and Motorcycle Association of Slovenia (AMZS) and the Belarusian Auto Moto Touring Club (BKA) have been awarded Prince Michael International Road Safety Award in London, United Kingdom. The Prince Michael International Road Safety Awards recognise outstanding achievement and innovation in road safety worldwide.
AMZS received the award for actively and continuously performing independent iRAP/EuroRAP Road Assessment procedures in Slovenia since 2008. The award was presented to Mr. Anton Breznik, President of AMZS and Mr. Jure Kostanjšek, Secretary General of AMZS and EuroRAP project manager.
Since 2008, the AMZS has been carrying out an independent assessment of road and road safety parameters using iRAP/EuroRAP protocols, following the road standard “At least 3 stars”. It has produced a Risk Maps of the Slovenian road network for 2006-2008, 2009-2011, 2012-2014 and 2015-2017. In the framework of the international project SENSoR, it performed road inspection assessing 3200km of national roads, adding between 2016-2019 an additional 800 km of national roads in Slovenia. An evidence of good work is also the fact that the EIRA-European Institute for Road Assessment was established and is hosted at AMZS headquarters in Ljubljana.
BKA received the award for its ground-breaking project under the title “Disability&mobility: lessons of kindness”. The aim of the project was to help disabled people move safely through road safety education as well as encouraging decision-makers to develop accessible infrastructure. BKA’s video “Lessons of kindness” tackles different aspects of the life of people with disabilities in Belarus: inclusive education, employment of persons with disabilities, the use of plain language in day-to-day life. BKA has been working on the issue since 2016. In 2017, BKA conducted ground-breaking research into the road safety problems faced by disabled people in Belarus, finding that two-thirds of disabled people face difficulties in making basic journeys.
BKA will continue working on this important issue in the upcoming years. In 2020 the BKA will start the new project “Plain language – plain road traffic rules!” in the framework the FIA Road Safety Grant Programme. The project will target the most vulnerable road users, such as people with disabilities but also elderly and children, to make road safety information more understandable. BKA also intends to provide special training to public transport drivers on how to communicate with people with different disabilities, to make the public transport more accessible.
