27 October 2006

Entries open for 2006 New Zealand Road Safety Awards

Entries for the 2006 Road Safety Innovation and Achievement Awards are now open, with more chances to win than ever before.

“After three years of recognising road safety initiatives in the categories of education, community, organisations, road engineering and vehicles, this year a new general category has been added to capture initiatives that fall outside these areas. In past years we saw some great entries that didn’t easily fit any category. We want to celebrate and recognise all excellent innovations,” says Awards project manager Andrew van Bunnik.

The awards recognise innovation and achievement in road safety, and encourage individuals and organisations in the road transport industry, business sector and community to pursue innovative practices to improve safety.

Open from now until 23 March 2007, the entries will be judged by a panel of experts. The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony in Wellington in May 2007. The winner in each award category receives a cash prize of $2000, with the overall Premier Award winner receiving an additional $3000 cash prize.

To be eligible for the awards, innovations must have originated within New Zealand or have been significantly adapted for New Zealand conditions. The awards are funded by the Road Safety Trust, and administered by Land Transport New Zealand. The Awards Organising Committee comprises representatives from the Automobile Association, AA Driver Education Foundation, New Zealand Police, Land Transport NZ and ACC.

Background information for media

There are six categories, plus the premier award:

- Road Safety Education Award
- Road Safety Community Award
- Road Safety in Organisations Award
- Road Safety Vehicle-based Award
- Road Safety Road engineering Award
- Road Safety General Award (new this year)
- Premier Award

Previous winners of the Road Safety Innovation and Achievement Awards

Road Safety Education
2005 winner, Greerton Village School in Tauranga, developed Kids on Feet and as a result 45% of students were walking to school from the drop off zone, 65% were walking home, and school gate chaos was eliminated.

In 2004 the winner was ‘Tricky Tracks’, a programme undertaken by a group of five eight and nine-year-olds from Edendale School near Invercargill to make the area around the railway tracks close to the school safer.

The 2003 award was jointly won by North Loburn School for a ‘Sharing Our Roads’ an education partnership with local logging truck drivers, and Te Puru School for developing a new parking and turning area for cars and buses, creating a safe environment for kids to come and go from school.

Road Safety Community
The 2005 award was jointly won by Turanga Health who developed Survival Idol, a ‘compose a road safety song’ competition targeting 10 to 18-year-old Gisborne Maori. The joint winner was Northland Rugby Referees Association’s Alcohol Management Operation which challenged sports clubs to promote road safety and keep their members safe.
New Lynn's Tongan Methodist Church ‘Safe in His Hands’ programme was recognised in 2004 for promoting road safety awareness among its large congregation and in the wider community.

In 2003 Gisborne-based Community Injury Prevention Unit (CIP) were recognised for developing a drink-driving education programme highlighting the devastating impact of an alcohol-related crash on the life of a promising young local athlete.

Road Safety Vehicle-based
In 2004 Databrake International was category winner for developing an intelligent brake lighting system to monitor a vehicle's deceleration. When critical braking thresholds were met the vehicle's hazard warning lights switch on - alerting other road users to the potential danger. Understood to be a world first as a retro fit, the hazard lights flash faster and more intensely as the level of braking increases.

The 2003 award went to Transport Engineering Research New Zealand (TERNZ) for the development of the world's first Static Roll Threshold calculator, used to measure the stability of heavy vehicles and reduce their likelihood of rolling over.

Road Safety Road-engineering
Transit NZ’s work on the Coast Road Median Barrier Project has made a narrow coastal section of State Highway 1 north of Wellington a much safer road and scored it the 2005 award.

The 2003 award was won jointly by the Christchurch City Council and electronic signage firm High Technology Systems for a speed control system designed to implement temporary 40km/h speed limits in Christchurch school zones.

Road Safety in Organisations
2005 winner, the Log Transport Safety Council, worked with transport operators, forest owners, government and researchers to make significant improvements to road safety in the sector.

2004 winner Excell Corporation implemented a range of safety measures from 1999 to reduce its employees' at-fault crash rate. The result was a drop in at-fault crashes from 72 percent to 49 percent of total crashes (and less than 30% in 2005).

Dairy company Fonterra won in 2003, and also took out the premier award, for a comprehensive programme aimed at improving the safety of the company's large fleet of milk tankers. This programme helped to reduce injury accidents among the company's tanker fleet by 63%.

ENDS

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