‘Ride to Safety’ an unique road saftey initiative by ICICI Lombard

Many of us have regularly come across news about road accidents in newspapers & online medium. We read about lives lost & serious damages incurred but forget about such news as we move to other matters. But a 2015 report released by Union Transport Ministry that analyzed road accident data shows a rise in road accidents over 2014 with the majority of victims being two-wheeler riders......made us take notice!!!

Cumulative numbers of such accidents were excruciatingly high!! With a huge number of two-wheelers involved in road accidents every year due to lack of professional driver training and appropriate road safety behavior it has become a major concern. A report by Ministry of Road Transport and Highways also points that two-wheelers account for around 25% of the total road accidents in the country, the highest amongst all vehicle categories. Even more shocking is the fact that that children are susceptible to road mishaps with 7% road accident victims being below 14 years.

Since, mostly two wheeler accidents involve a head injury, a crash could mean serious harm to anyone riding without a helmet. Children would be more vulnerable to injures due to their lighter frame. We wondered if some measures would help curb & correct this painful scenario.  ‘Ride to Safety’ is a unique initiative launched by ICICI Lombard aimed at improving the road safety scenario for children. ICICI Lombard has held 100 such educational workshops in cities like Mumbai, Pune and Delhi since September 2015 & reached out to over 15000 children and their parents with an aim to ensure that children are safe when riding on two wheelers. We felt this was a step towards the right direction.....and decided to know more about the initiative.

How did ICICI Lombard reach out to the right audience, we thought? The company partnered with three NGOs to manage and execute the unique initiative across cities. The NGO partners identified schools,obtained necessary permissions and conducted the workshops with parents and their children in the age group of 9-13 years. In order to ensure desired impact for its varied target audience, the workshop had different modules for parents and children. The parent focused workshops were detailed, based on scientific data & adopted a serious tone whereas, workshops focused on children utilized the fun learning way using games, quizzes to ensure that the road safety related message was understood and stayed with the child. The workshops focused on importance of educating children about road safety values young and an impressionable age will ensure that they follow safe road habits throughout their lives.

In its endeavor of enhancing road safety, the initiative in addition to influencing behavioral change in parents also provided child specific helmets to children riding two wheeler as pillion riders. ISI marked specially designed helmets were distributed to 9000 children post the workshops after examining the driving license of the parents.

After the workshops, a few happy parents along with their children shared a few words about the initiative. One of the parents praised the unique approach by saying:
‘Helmet awareness is a very critical concern. Lot of corporate have taken this up in the recent past. But ICICI Lombard is the only company to focus on pillion riders as a category which is very sympathetic’.

Children who attended the workshops were equally happy with a little one expressing his joy over receiving his child specific helmet:

‘We are very excited to receive the child specific helmets from ICICI Lombard. We also love the way, the workshops are conducted for us. Serious issue of helmet awareness is being addressed by the trainers in a very simple and easy to understand language. Thank you ICICI Lombard!!’ 

One of the NGO Partner that worked tirelessly to achieve successful execution of the initiative shared:
‘We have been working in the area of road safety from almost a decade. But conducting workshops for parents as well as kids was a first time experience for us. Explaining the importance of pillion rider safety while driving two wheeler to the parents was extremely critical. We are grateful to ICICI Lombard for giving us the opportunity to work with them in this splendid initiative.’

‘Ride to Safety’ is one more step from ICICI Lombard, India’s largest private sector general insurance company to go beyond its business focus and contribute to the well being of all stakeholders, including the community at large.