Saturday 20 June was Road Safety Day here in Germany. Under normal circumstances we would have joined forces with Moki to organise some great activities for you and been out there getting involved. But we've had to change our plans: instead of getting together with you outside, we're meeting up online. That's also good, in our view, because there are so many great activities you can take part in from home.
In light of current events, this year's Road Safety Day was held digitally. Using the hashtag "1000sichereWünsche" (1000safewishes), the initiators from the German Road Safety Council (Deutscher Verkehrssicherheitsrat) urged people to join in, post details of what they were doing and share wishes. The objective was, and remains, to increase awareness of road safety matters. In previous years a whole range of road safety activities took place all over Germany, but this year everything was on the internet. Our expert, Moki, has details about who took part this year and about which activities and pictures were particularly well received.
Over to Moki
Hi Everyone,
It's me, Moki. I've been looking forward to Road Safety Day all year.
My alarm clock normally goes off at eight o'clock in the morning. On Saturday 20 June I woke up before it rang, I was so excited. I just had time before breakfast to look up a few facts. I discovered that this day has been marked since 2005, so actually it's a couple of years older than I am. It was invented by the German Road Safety Council, or "DVR" for short. This is an organisation that wants to improve safety on our roads, through campaigns such as the Road Safety Day.
Having eaten a good breakfast to boost my energy levels, I was ready to get going. You see, the organisers this year had called on people to share their own, personal wishes for better road safety on social networks, using the hashtag "#1000sichereWünsche"
What's been happening?
After lunch I finally got to my favourite part and popped in to see some really great online activities. Take a look at them with your parents.
I found myself visiting the police, first of all. The officers of the law from the Emsland region came up with a motto of their own to add to the official one: "5 Days – 5 Videos": for five days they published road safety-related videos on Twitter. These gave me a real insight into all sorts of areas of policing and police life. I think the videos I liked most were those about speed monitoring and child seats. The police in Wilhelmshaven/Friesland also got busy and posted some useful tips on Twitter. I learnt from their account how to behave in the dark to avoid danger, as well as some interesting facts about blind spots. You can find all these items on the internet under #FAHRsicherRAD. Incidentally, quite a lot of other police forces followed this example and got busy posting.
By the time I looked up from my laptop for the first time, I was amazed how late it was. It was the afternoon already. I didn't want to miss a single idea, so I switched over to the online campaign. Only after I'd grabbed a cup of cocoa, of course. After a quick search I found the Instagram account for "DIY. Dein Mobilitätsprojekt" (Your Mobility Project). Their project "Zebra Streichen" (Paint a Zebra) wants to make people aware of how easy it is to request a zebra crossing and to encourage more people to do so. To do this, they were painting zebras (the animal) on some of the streets in Berlin.
What sort of wishes were there?
At some point it started getting dark outside and I was tired. As I'd spent most of my time looking at the various activities, I was now interested to see what sort of wishes people were posting. I entered "#1000sichereWünsche" in my search bar to see what I could find. I found a picture from the Malteser Aid Service in Upper Bavaria, expressing a wish for effective emergency corridors on the motorway. Environmental Action Germany (Deutsche Umwelthilfe) posted a photo of a bike lane with a request for more pop-up bike lanes, while others wished for more consideration and fewer road accidents.
I was so pleased to see all these wonderful wishes and, by then, was more than ready to go to bed.
Love from Moki
Road Safety Day is presented, among others, by the German Road Safety Council (Deutsche Verkehrssicherheitsrat, DVR), an independent pioneer and authority in all aspects of road safety.