Friendly Roads: An Innovative Citizen Engagement Project to Make Georgia’s Roads Safer
Georgia’s unsafe roads are one of the most
urgent public health problems facing the country. Last year alone, 605 people
were killed in traffic accidents, with an additional 7734 persons injured.
Traffic accidents are a top five cause of death in Georgia and they are the
leading cause of death among youth aged 5 to 29.
In order to combat this leading cause of death
and disability and make Georgia’s roads safer for all road users, the
Partnership for Road Safety and Elva Community Engagement are launching an
innovative citizen engagement project titled "Friendly Roads", with
support of the East West Management Institute and USAID. The project will allow
citizens throughout all regions of Georgia to report hazardous traffic
infrastructure and traffic accidents in their neighbourhood using SMS and a
website. On the website www.megobruligzebi.ge all these citizen reports will be shown on an
interactive map together with official data on traffic accidents, to create the
first publicly accessible overview of traffic hazards in Georgia.
The project will encourage safe driving
behaviour and will allow citizens to easily report and spot the most dangerous
traffic infrastructure (the so-called “black spots”) in their neighbourhood and
commuting routes. Using this accessible overview of hazardous traffic
infrastructure, the campaign will work towards influencing decision makers at
local and national levels to take evidence-based and targeted action to prevent
further accidents using citizen reporting and resolving black spots. The website www.megobruligzebi.ge will be launched in the coming weeks.
Let’s work together to prevent traffic related
deaths and injuries in Georgia!
For more details
and instructions on how you can participate in the campaign, please, contact at
info@safedrive.ge, jonne@myelva.com, georoadsafety@gmail.com or at 995
558240401, +995 599062211.
This project is made possible by the generous
support of the American people through the United States Agency for
International Development (USAID). The contents are the responsibility of the
implementing organisations and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or
the United States Government.