Skip to main content

Global road safety programme

A global road safety programme will help save lives.
By MJ Woof June 11, 2020 Read time: 2 mins
Road safety is paramount, particularly for youngsters – image courtesy © Susan Vineyard, Dreamstime.com


The International Road Assessment Programme (iRAP) has announced that 3M has become a Global Programme Partner in the iRAP’s Star Rating for Schools (SR4S) programme. Through this, 3M will provide an annual contribution to support the programme and its goal of ensuring that children are able to travel safely to and from school.

Road crashes are the biggest killer of young people worldwide and the life-changing impact of injury affects children all around the world. iRAP developed the SR4S system as an evidence-based tool for measuring, managing and communicating children’s exposure to risk on a journey to school. It supports quick interventions that help save lives and prevent serious injuries. SR4S allows the easy assessment of road infrastructure and speed management features and calculates a Star Rating where 1-star is the least safe and 5-star is the safest.

iRAP is a UK registered charity with an objective of international promotion of road safety improvement and road quality for public benefit. iRAP has a vision for a world free of high-risk roads.

“Our children deserve a safe journey to and from school. If we can make our roads safe for kids, they will be safe for everyone,” said iRAP CEO Rob McInerney. “Providing the SR4S tools for free use worldwide will maximise our potential to save children’s lives. 3M’s great support will help make this happen.”

“We are very pleased to partner with iRAP and together advance road safety globally,” said Dr Daniel Chen, Vice President, 3M Transportation Safety Division. “Through the SR4S process and implementation of simple and effective treatments like footpaths, safe crossings, line marking and signage, iRAP and their Lead Partners are making an impact on the lives of school children around the world.”

The SR4S programme officially launched at the 3rd Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety which took place in Sweden in February 2020. 3M joins SR4S as the first of five Global Programme Partners that will support the SR4S Programme, along with the Founding Sponsor FedEx and Major Donor FIA Foundation, as a partner in this important children’s safety programme.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Young motorcycle riders at most risk in Europe
    January 20, 2017
    Young powered two wheelers are most at risk of crashing. That is the key finding of a recent report into powered two wheeler crashes in Europe. The analysis of 9,186 crashes where a motorcyclist was severely injured, shows that specifically young, male riders face a significant risk to become a road traffic victim. The European Commission recently published the ‘Study on serious road traffic injuries in the EU’ to collate data that could in the future prevent serious road traffic injuries. The aim was to
  • Implementing road safety initiatives
    July 13, 2012
    Blair Turner examines infrastructure options for achieving Safe System outcomes and their implementation in Australia Like a number of other developed countries around the world, Australia has recently adopted a 'Safe System' approach to addressing road safety. This approach, which stems from Sweden's Vision Zero and Sustainable Safety in the Netherlands, recognises that humans as road users are fallible and will make mistakes. There are also limits to the kinetic energy exchange that humans can tolerate (
  • Road safety has improved worldwide
    January 5, 2024
    Road safety has improved worldwide but still falls short of targets.
  • Europe’s road safety picture slanted wrong way?
    May 24, 2016
    The European Commission’s latest figures for road safety reveal some cause for concern across the EU. While the EU has the world’s safest roads overall, the road fatality rate has slipped during 2015. And this is for the second consecutive year also as EU road deaths in 2014 also showed an increase over 2013. By comparison, there were decreases in the European road death rate of 8% in 2012 and 2013.