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Traffic Responsibility Action

About Traffic Responsibility Action

Traffic Responsibility Action (Trafikte Sorumluluk Hareketi) is a corporate social responsibility project, carried out under the coordination of the Turkish Ministry of Transport and Communications, in cooperation with the institutions and organizations operating in the field of traffic and vehicle safety, with the support of TÜVTURK. Traffic Responsibility Action aims at raising awareness in the public in an attempt to take protective precautions for safety of life in traffic and to develop awareness about acting responsibly in traffic, which is one of the severest problems causing loss of lives and property in Turkey.

While positioning the project, the fact that it is only possible to produce permanent and sustainable solutions to the problem of safety of life in traffic through the inclusion of the stakeholder organizations has been taken into consideration.

First announced publicly at the press conference held on May 4, 2010 in Ankara, the first stakeholder meeting of the project was held on the same day. The second stakeholder meeting was held on Jul 15, 2010 in Istanbul and the third was held on 23 December, 2010 in Ankara. Stakeholder meetings are of great importance, as they provide the opportunity to assess the course of the project and benefit from new cooperation opportunities.

The project started in 2010 and still continues with three subprojects developed specially for the target groups: Safe Vehicle Action, Bosom Buddies Action, and Responsible Citizen Action.

In an attempt to raise awareness in the public about acting responsibly in traffic, special training modules for the target groups were developed, and introductory films were made to appear on local and national media.

Stakeholders

Traffic Responsibility Action has tried to incorporate as many institutions and organizations as possible to reach favorable results. To this end, number of the stakeholders increase gradually as new organizations make proposal for cooperation. Currently, the stakeholders of the project are as follows:

• Ministry of Transport and Communications
  • Directorate General of Land Transportation
  • Directorate General of Highways
• Ministry of Internal Affairs
  • Directorate General of Security
  • General Commandership of Gendarmerie
• Ministry of National Education
  • Directorate General of Preschool Education
  • Directorate General of Primary Education
  • Directorate General of Apprenticeship and Non-Formal Training
• Ministry of Environment and Forest
• Ministry of Industry and Trade
• Bogazici University
• Erzincan University
• Gazi University
• Metropolitan Municipality of Ankara
• Metropolitan Municipality of Istanbul
• Turkish Accreditation Agency
• Turkish Drivers and Vehicle Owners Association
• TRT- Turkish Radio and Television Institution
• TUVTURK

Safe Vehicle Action

Safe Vehicle Action aims at creating awareness about vehicle safety in particular and individual responsibilities in general. To this end, training meetings are held for commercial vehicle drivers in cooperation with the Turkish Drivers and Vehicle Owners Association.

In addition, a specially designed trailer truck visits cities, to provide an environment for the general public to learn by experience. In the trailer truck activity field, the participants are invited to use alcohol impairment goggles to experience how alcohol affect perception and reactions; safety belt simulator displays the possible unfavorable results of not wearing the seatbelt; and psycho-technique device gives the participants a chance to assess their basic capabilities and abilities such as perception, memory tracing, reasoning, feet-hand-eye coordination, reaction time, peripheral vision, speed-distance estimation, collision time estimation. Additionally, the participants have the opportunity to ask questions about vehicle inspection to the TÜVTURK employees at the mobile inspection station brought to the activity field.

Besides, communicative and informative activities are carried out in the activity field through the materials developed specially within the scope of the project.

Click here to watch a collection of videos from the Safe Vehicle Action field activities.
Click here to view images from the training meetings and field activities.

Bosom Buddies Action

Bosom Buddies Action aims at raising the awareness of the 4th and 5th grade teachers and students, their parents and school bus drivers regarding life safety in traffic and increasing their awareness about 'acting responsibly' in traffic.

Bosom Buddies Action has been put into practice through the cooperation protocol between the Turkish Ministry of Transport and Communications, Directorate General of Road Transport, Ministry of National Education, Directorate General of Primary Education, and TÜVTURK Kuzey Tasit Muayene Istasyonlari Yapim ve Isletim A.S.

Objectives of the project

• Providing the source information that the teachers might need during the traffic safety course in a standard program.
• In order to ensure successive behavioral change, illustrating the methods for teachers to affect their students and for the students to affect their parents.
• Training other teachers via the representative teachers, thereby strengthening the general quality of traffic safety courses.
• Considering the importance of school bus drivers in traffic safety at schools, reaching these drivers through printed materials on basic principles for avoiding accidents, and ensuring the encouragement and monitoring of the safe behaviors of the school bus drivers together with parents and students.
• Via the website of the project, enabling the participants and supporters of the project access the materials on traffic safety in general and the documents and sources necessary within the scope of the project in particular; providing them with the means for interacting with the other stakeholders.
• Keeping the issue of traffic on the agenda and making it a part of life.

Benefits of the project

• Contributing to the development of safe behaviors and positive attitudes in traffic at early ages, thereby creating a future traffic environment with safer drivers and pedestrians.
• Through this project, students will acquire positive attitudes and behaviors in traffic, take notice of the deficiencies and faults around them, and observe the behaviors of their parents in particular and other persons who might be role models for them and warn them.
• Thanks to the project materials developed for children to affect their parents, the behaviors of the adults around the children will also change.
• Parents will understand that they should monitor the school busses to ensure the safe travel of their children to and from schools.
• The interaction between teachers, parents and students will be exploited to ensure life safety of children in traffic.

The project is carried under five steps:

• Representative teachers attend the training seminar on traffic and vehicle safety.
• Representative teachers train the other 4th and 5th grade teachers at their schools through the materials provided to them.
• All class teachers train their students by using the original materials provided to them within the scope of the project during the traffic safety course.
• All class teachers train the parents of their students by benefiting from the original content provided to them within the scope of the project.
• All class teachers carry out informative activities for the school bus drivers at their schools.

Scope of the project
In the 2010-11 academic year, Bosom Buddies Action included 152 schools from 16 provinces:
Ankara
Adana
Antalya
Eskisehir
Izmir
Kayseri
Konya
Mersin
Bursa
Diyarbakir
Edirne
Erzincan
Gaziantep
Istanbul
Samsun
Van

Project website

A website has been developed within the scope of the project: www.candostlarihareketi.com. This site aims at supporting the practices at schools and provides an interactive environment for all students, by providing original and creative contents on traffic safety.

Responsible Citizen Action

Responsible Citizen Action aims at raising awareness in the public on safety of life in traffic and increasing the awareness for acting responsibly in traffic in the target groups of the project.

The project reaches two different target groups through seminars.

• Main topics of the seminars are as follows:
• Restructuring the concept of accident and safety
• Redefining responsibility at individual level: "self"
• Drawing attention to near-miss accidents
• Avoiding accidents: notice the threat; make a correct decision; react correctly
• Contribution of traffic sings to avoiding accidents
• Vehicle safety
• Daily use of traffic laws and regulations

Public Training Center Seminars

Public Training Center seminars are carried out under the cooperation protocol signed between the Turkish Ministry of Transport and Communications Directorate General of Land Transport, the Ministry of National Education Directorate General of Apprenticeship and Non-Formal Training, and TUVTURK Kuzey Tasit Muayene Istasyonlari Yapim ve Isletim A.S.

Teachers and instructors at Public Training Centers attend the seminars, and then they train their trainees by using the original materials provided to them, thereby helping the project reach larger groups in the public.

First Public Training Center seminar was held in November 2010, and they still continue.

Provinces within the scope of the project in 2010:

• Ankara
• Antalya
• Bursa
• Erzincan
• Istanbul
• Izmir
• Kayseri
• Mersin
• Van

University Seminars

Another target group of Responsible Citizen Action is university students. High accident and death rates observed in this age group led us to define university students as a separate target group.

University seminars are held at the conference halls of universities, and they are delivered by academicians specialized on traffic safety, as it is the case in the Public Training Center seminars.

The first university seminar was held in December 2010, and they still continue.

Universities within the scope of the project in the year 2010:

• Bogazici University - Istanbul
• Ege University – Izmir
• Gazi University - Ankara
• Erzincan University - Erzincan
• Ondokuz Mayis University – Samsun
• Uludag University - Bursa

Movies

To introduce the project to the public, 7 films were made. The main introductory film of Traffic Responsibility Action was shot by the famous director Ezel Akay. This film underlines the key message of the project: Act responsibly in traffic, all the time!

Three films were made with celebrities. Kenan Imirzalioglu, Kenan Isik, and Grup Hepsi voluntarily took role in these films, carrying key messages for significant target groups. In addition to these, three animated films were made to deliver key messages to the audiences.

Upon the approval and authorization of the Radio and Television Supreme Council, these films are broadcasted free of charge, reaching millions of people.

Click here to watch or download the introductory films of the project.

Materials

All the communicative and informative materials used within the project are developed by experts. Besides, the representatives from the stakeholder organizations assess the materials used in the trainings and they make suggestions regarding the content and design of the materials.

Safe Vehicle Card

Safe Vehicle Card has been one of the most important means of communication within the scope of Traffic Responsibility Action. It was inspired by the safety cards used in planes. Designed in line with the ideas and suggestions of the stakeholders in respect of its content and visual design, it has been prepared in an attempt to provide collective information on traffic safety on a single and handy material. Besides, it provided the key topics touched in the training and communication activities carried out within the scope of the project.

Click here to view or download the Safe Vehicle Card.

Posters

To reach wide audiences all over the country, we used the key messages in Safe Vehicle Card on our posters and delivered it countrywide thanks to the collaboration with our stakeholders.

Presentations

Click here to view or download the "Traffic Responsibility Action" presentation.

Reach and Measurement

Total Number of Reach

The table below summarizes the activities in the year 2010, the total number of the individuals reached and communicative and informative materials distributed.

TOTAL NUMBER OF REACH, INFORMATIVE AND COMMUNICATIVE MATERIALS DISTRIBUTED
	Total Number of Reach	Total Number of Materials Distributed
Safe Vehicle Action Informative and Communicative Activities	79,500 individuals	162,563
Safe Vehicle Action Field Activity (Road Show)		21,220
Safe Vehicle Action Training Seminars	2276 individuals	10,634
Bosom Buddies Action	165,000 individuals	173,600
Responsible Citizen Action – Public Training Center Seminars	32,600 individuals	55,942
Responsible Citizen Action – University Seminars	712 individuals	11,791
Safe Vehicle Card		1,000,000
Traffic Responsibility Action Posters		174,000
Turkish Drivers and Vehicle Owners Association Traffic Fines Guide		500,000
Total	280,088 individuals	2,109,750 materials

Training Effectiveness Measurement

Within the scope of Traffic Responsibility Action, seminars are held for four different target groups. The charts below summarize the training effectiveness of the seminars, measured by the pretest and posttest questionnaires filled out by the participants in the year 2010.

As the charts demonstrate, in the year 2010,

• Safe Vehicle Action increased the correct knowledge base from 61.83% before the training by 25.38 points to 87,21% after the training;
• Bosom Buddies Action increased the correct knowledge base from 45.30% before the training by 27.5 points to 72.80% after the training;
• Responsible Citizen Action increased the correct knowledge base from 57% before the training by 22.3 points to 79.30% after the training at the Public Training Center seminars;
• Responsible Citizen Action increased the correct knowledge base from 43,10% before the training by 25 points to 68.10% after the training at the university seminars.