TUR – FIBA and UNECE launch Road Safety Campaign
ISTANBUL (2010 FIBA World Championship) – The International Basketball Federation (FIBA) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and have launched a new information campaign on road safety to coincide with the 2010 FIBA World Championship. ...
ISTANBUL (2010 FIBA World Championship) – The International Basketball Federation (FIBA) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and have launched a new information campaign on road safety to coincide with the 2010 FIBA World Championship.
The campaign carries the motto “We play and drive by the rules” and has been developed to inform people around the world – especially the young people who are basketball fans or play basketball themselves – and to encourage respect for the rules, on the road as well as on the court.
Every year some 1.3 million people die as a result of road traffic crashes worldwide – amounting to more than 3,500 deaths each day. More than half of the casualties are pedestrians, cyclists or other road users not traveling in a car.
Road traffic injuries are the leading cause of death for children and young people aged between five and 29. In addition, on average 20 to 50 million people sustain non-fatal injuries from road traffic crashes each year. These injuries are a significant cause of disabilities worldwide.
Experience shows that these are not accidents, but events that can be prevented through daily action and awareness raising. There is ample evidence in many countries in the world that respecting basic road safety rules dramatically reduces the risk of suffering a crash and, should a crash happen, dramatically reduces its adverse consequences.
The “We play and drive by the rules” campaign is organised with the support of the Turkish Basketball Federation (TBF) which is hosting the championship, the Spanish Basketball Federation (FEB) and the Turkish National Police (TNP), which is in charge of road safety enforcement in the host country.
The campaign includes video clips with José Calderón, a world champion with the Spanish National Team in 2006, Kerem Tunçeri of Turkey’s National Team and Turkish legend Harun Erdenay.
These clips are being broadcasted in the arenas during the games and on the television channels broadcasting the games.
Information booths are also displayed in the arenas in the four cities hosting the games: Ankara, Istanbul, Izmir and Kayseri.
A Declaration for road safety, signed by officials of UNECE, FIBA, TBF and TNP, is displayed in the arenas to invite the players of the various teams to join the campaign and declare: “We play and drive by the rules”.
Ján Kubiš, UNECE Executive Secretary, said: “The need for action to improve global road safety has been acknowledged by several resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly and by the First Ministerial Conference on Road Safety held in November 2009 in Moscow. We hope that this joint campaign at the FIBA Basketball World Championship 2010 will contribute to spread the road safety message across the world and help save lives”.
Patrick Baumann, FIBA Secretary General, said: “The basketball family has already lost a lot of its members on the road – famous stars as well as amateur players who travel by road every other week to play with their team. This is a needless, shocking and tragic loss of life which needs to be tackled urgently. With this campaign, FIBA hopes to hammer home the message that we want everybody, both in and out of the sport of basketball, to play and drive by the rules.”
FIBA