At the presentation of the road safety campaign designated as "Responsible Pedestrians" in Ponta Delgada, the Regional Secretary for Transport and Public Works stated that the reduction registered in the number of serious injuries and fatalities resulting from accidents on Azorean roads “demonstrate the effectiveness of these campaigns."
Vítor Fraga pointed out that, although the overall number of accidents has increased due to the increase of traffic on the archipelago's roads, there is "a reduction of about 35% in the number of deaths and about 9% in serious injuries."
The government official revealed that this new campaign is aimed at children, "not only from the perspective of assimilating these principles of road safety but also from the perspective of providing information to parents and tutors, given their power of influencing."
The "Responsible Pedestrians" campaign, already ongoing, is directed to 13 thousand children and young people attending middle and junior high school. It involves the distribution of flyers and posters on A3 size throughout all Azorean schools teaching these levels.
The main goal of the campaign concerns the provision of information on good practices that should be adopted in road safety when using public and private or public transport, walking or cycling.
This initiative aims to help children and young people to detect or recognise the dangers so they may know how to defend themselves. It also warns them to the need for compliance with basic traffic rules.