Displaying items by tag: Road safety

Nigeria: The governor of Cross River State, Bassey Otu, has officially commissioned a 20km road built by Lafarge Africa. The road is being constructed at Mfamosing, Lafarge's operational base, and ends at Odukpani junction near Ayade’s Flyover. It was initiated in 2010 as a bypass to alleviate traffic congestion.

Governor Otu said “What you have done has taken this whole traffic completely out of town and straight to the road where they are actually looking to take things out of the state. I commend you and wish that other corporate bodies would emulate Lafarge.”

Alade Akinyemi, group managing director and CEO of Lafarge, informed the governor that the project was started in 2010, but was delayed due to challenges associated with geotechnical studies and the design. He said “The road will improve safety, drive economic growth, and enhance productivity due to reduction of man hour as a result of no traffic and congestion.”

UK: Cemex UK has agreed to trial a new cyclist warning system produced by road safety specialist FHOSS. The supplier says that the system alerts truck drivers to cyclists in their left-hand side blind spot. For the trial, Cemex UK will install the system in a Rugby-based cement tanker, a London-based rigid tipper and six London-based mixers.

UK and France Supply Chain Director David Hart said, “This new safety technology from FHOSS supports our road safety strategy, which is all about helping save lives.” He added, “Operating large cement tanker and aggregate tipper fleets means we are always looking at innovative technology that will aid the driver and protect vulnerable road users.”

Nigeria: A Dangote Cement truck overturned on the Epe Bridge in Lagos, landing on a taxi and killing six of its seven passengers. Punch Metro newspaper has reported the cause of the incident was a brake failure due to a mechanical fault with the truck. It is unknown whether the driver was operating illegally. The survivor is receiving hospital treatment.

Romania: Holcim Romania, part of LafargeHolcim, has initiated a national road safety programme to raise awareness of the importance of appropriate driving behaviour across the supply chain.

The three-year programme consists of series of valuable projects mainly aimed at reducing the number of human casualties and the number of critical incidents on the roads in Romania.
At global level, every year, road accidents kill over 1.3 million people and injure 20 - 25 million people, with injuries caused by traffic accidents being the main death cause among people between 15 and 29.

The national road safety programme launched by Holcim in Romania will comprise four main action directions, which will take place simultaneously and in which the company has invested over Euro100,000:

1. An education and involvement programme in the local communities;
2. A programme for raising awareness and training the companies providing transport services to Holcim Romania;
3. A series of focus groups for professional drivers;
4. An integrated journey management programme.

As part of the project dedicated to local communities, Holcim Romania introduced the educational project 'Safe Road – the ABC of the road' in 12 schools from four counties (Arges, Bihor, Cluj and Dambovita). The project is based on the road education curriculum developed in 2015 by the Ministry of Education and Scientific Research and helps pupils from the primary level to understand the traffic rules and how they can prevent road accidents.

The team in charge of managing the fleet providing transport services to Holcim Romania will also communicate directly on the importance of road safety, through a training programme that sets to align the road safety standards between Holcim Romania and the partner transport companies, starting from the statistics concerning the road incidents provided by the World Health Organisation.

The third project included in the road safety programme consists in focus groups with 550 professional drivers (employees of the companies that provide transport services for Holcim Romania), in order to encourage their involvement in raising awareness on the importance of road safety. The conclusions will be further processed by Holcim Health and Safety team and will be implemented in the fleet companies.
Through the fourth direction of action of the road safety programme, Holcim Romania aims to implement, in a sustainable manner, several viable measurement tools, which allow for an efficient management and for the diminution of road accidents which can occur in our supply chain.

"Holcim Romania permanently seeks to improve and develop the Health and Safety standards and culture among its employees. This supports our 'Zero harm' vision in all processes and activities. One of our major concerns is to comply with the traffic rules and we wish to contribute with this road safety programme to decreasing the number of fatal and critical accidents. We can do this only by changing the drivers' mentality and raising their awareness with regard to the traffic risks," said François Petry, CEO of Holcim Romania.