For its UN Global Road Safety Week campaign, Road Safety Pioneers is aiming to secure a formal commitment from the Traffic and Transportation Organization to equip 20 school zones in Tehran and Mashhad with 30 km/h signs and markings. traffic calming around the highest risk schools, and visible enforcement by police.
These asks have been identified and backed using Mobility Snapshots, community audits, and other data collection. “We identified and prioritized schools that need traffic calming as well as 30 km/h signs based on our findings showing excessive speeds and near-miss incidents,” says Ali Zayerzadeh, Road Safety Pioneer’s CEO. “Gaps in enforcement of speed limits were a recurring issue in the Mobility Snapshots, hence our call for high-visibility enforcement patrols with traffic police during peak school hours, ensuring operational speeds align with the 30 km/h limit.”
During the campaign week, the NGO is running a number of activities to demonstrate the critical importance of lower speeds for the children, teachers, and parents who use these school streets every day. During school visits, it is collecting signatures calling for implementation of 30 km/h zones, organizing community walk audits with students, and running a school zone safety storytelling event and drawing contest.
Additionally, it is holding an ideation workshop with urban planning students at Tehran University to explore ways to design streets that are safer for pedestrians and cyclists and mobilize them as advocates for safe street infrastructure and low speed limits. These students will pave the way to take the make walking and cycling safe message to other students and the public.
Road Safety Pioneer’s activities will culminate in its flagship event, which will bring together the school community with a key local decision maker. Together, they will share findings from Road Safety Pioneer’s Mobility Snapshots, present the petition, and give personal testimonies about unsafe school-home journeys. Ali says “By presenting the Mobility Snapshots alongside emotional narratives, we aim to highlight the urgency of our key asks.” During the event, the NGO will seek pledges from managers at the municipality to implement the 30 km/h zones and a specific commitment from the Head of the Traffic and Transportation Organization, who has the power to influence city-wide policy.
