Approximately a hundred thousand people die from traffic accidents in China every year.  While the government has prioritized road safety as a key area of focus, many fear that the rate may rise at a steep rate over the coming 10 years. These figures are known to many, but the question is, with so many problems related to traffic accidents were do you start?

 

The European Chamber and the British Chamber in Beijing addressed this very question at the Road Safety Awareness Event on the 22^nd February, during which the problems facing companies as a result of traffic accidents was discussed.

 

Mirjam Thieme of Heidelberg outlined some of the HR issues that had arisen directly from accidents that had happened to staff, explaining the expected and unexpected costs that the company had incurred. Examples she gave included the tragic death of a manager, injury of visiting foreign experts, and a third incident where an accident left the driver so injured he had to give up his career. In such cases, the impact to the company and staff involves emotional pain, loss of talent, and of course the cost of compensation. She also went on to explain that, although most companies have the correct HR policies in place, this is an area where internal policies along cannot mitigate risk.

 

One HR policy that Ms. Thieme strongly advocated was that of requiring all staff traveling on business, whether a passenger on a company bus or an official driver for the company, to wear a seatbelt. Pia MacRae of BP explained how this particular policy had produced an employee driven interest in the subject. With the policy in place throughout the BP sites many employees had taken on board the need for seatbelt usage and had even begun to promote this concept beyond the company staff to families and the local communities. As a result BP took this CSR concept and sought out a way to constructively promote seatbelt usage.

 

They found it in the form of the China Seatbelt Intervention Project, for which BP is the official sponsor. This project aims to address one particular road traffic issue and make a difference in this area. The project is based on seatbelt usage in Guangzhou and the partners of the project include the George Institute, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the National Bureau of Traffic Administration in the Ministry of Public Security.

 

Professor Mark Stevenson, from the George Institute for International Health, spoke at the joint Chamber event, explaining how the intervention monitoring in Guangzhou was being conducted in parallel with a monitoring of the control city Nanning, so as to provide a more comprehensive analysis.

 

At present the law in China stipulates that all drivers and front seat passengers of cars must wear seatbelts, or they can be fined. However, in practice compliance is varied across different locations and much lower than in OECD countries.  The intervention in Guangzhou is being conducted to produce the maximum result, by providing social marketing in tandem with improving enforcement.

 

Professor Stevenson explained that the social marketing aspect of this project addressed the need to educate people and change attitudes, but to also produce the fastest impact, so information is being disseminated through newspapers, television adverts and even stickers to promote the project in taxis throughout the city. Another initiative is to train the taxi driver trainers, so as to be able to pass on the knowledge to as many new drivers as possible.

 

The China Seatbelt Intervention is also working with the police departments on the crucial area of enforcement with 50 senior traffic police officers receiving seatbelt law enforcement training. This work is about changing attitudes, pushing through the implementation of the law and ensuring that people know that if they are not following the legal requirements, they will be caught and fined.

 

It is hoped that this initiative will increase seatbelt usage from the existing level of by a minimum of 20%, saving lives and increasing safety standards on the road.