Winners of OSCE-supported competition on traffic safety in Armenia announced

YEREVAN, 17 May 2011 – In an event today concluding the Road Safety Week in Armenia six schoolchildren from Yerevan were awarded prizes for their knowledge of traffic rules.

The Road Safety Week in Armenia was launched on 11 May by the OSCE Office in Yerevan, United Nations Department for Public Information (UNDPI) and the Armenian National Road Safety Council (NRSC). Its goal was to raise awareness of road safety rules among drivers and pedestrians, with a special focus on schoolchildren in the framework of the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020.

“Every year around 1,300,000 people in the world are killed in road accidents, every 3 minutes a child dies,” said Carel Hofstra, Deputy Head of the OSCE Office in Yerevan. “Activities to promote safety and teach children about traffic safety do save lives and make a difference.”

“We support efforts of Armenian authorities and law enforcement aimed at making the roads safer, however these efforts will be fully successful if each of us - pedestrians, drivers and passengers, - respect the traffic rules and each other on the road. We can help save millions of lives. This is the goal of the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety," said Maria Dotsenko, UNDPI Representative in Armenia.

Forty-eight schoolchildren from seven schools of Yerevan participated in an interactive game on the topic of traffic rules organized today for the first time in Armenia. All participants received certificates and the winning team of six were awarded trophies with the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety emblem. The Armenian Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization also contributed to the prizes.

Poghos Shahinyan, the Head of the Secretariat of the Armenian NRSC, said: “Enforcing the use of seat belts in 2009, introduction of compulsory motor insurance in 2011 are some of the activities undertaken by the Armenian Government under the 2009 national strategy on improving road safety situation. In the course of last two years pilot classes were introduced in 50 Armenian schools and together with the Ministry of Education and Science we are developing a methodology on inclusion of road safety in the school curriculum.”

During the Road Safety Week in Armenia, schoolchildren together with traffic police officers advised pedestrians on crossing streets according to the traffic rules, distributed flyers and promotional gifts, and helped re-paint a pedestrian crossing area in Yerevan.