For immediate release, Wednesday 8 May 2024, Sydney: Boral Limited (“Boral”) is supporting National Road Safety Week and the delivery of the RYDA road safety program for the second consecutive year, as part of its commitment to Zero Harm and safety procedures, extending to the responsibility of road safety and better educating drivers and passengers.
Students from three Melbourne schools will participate in the RYDA program this week, on 6 and 9 May, which aims to equip them with the tools, habits and behaviours to stay safe on roads as both drivers and passengers. RYDA is a professionally developed road safety initiative by leading learning organisation and not-for-profit Road Safety Education Limited (RSE).
Every year, approximately 1,200 people are killed and another 40,000-plus1 are seriously injured on Australian roads. Traffic injury is the biggest killer of Australian children under 15 and the secondbiggest killer of Australians aged between 15 and 24. National Road Safety Week aims to highlight the impact of road trauma and ways to reduce it, supported by governments, individuals, charities and businesses across Australia and New Zealand, including Boral.
Students at Dandenong High School, Edinburgh College and Lilydale Heights High College will join more than 735,000 young people to date who have participated in the RYDA program, through the support of Boral and other corporate partners. The workshops aim to increase road and heavy vehicle awareness and safety for young people.
Boral will have a heavy vehicle present at the workshops to help students understand the risks and considerations when sharing the road with trucks. Students will also hear from a Boral driver about their experiences operating trucks on the road and will have the opportunity to sit in the truck’s cabin to learn first-hand about risk factors such as truck blind spots and stopping speeds.
Tim Richards, Executive General Manager Asphalt, said: “Boral, as one of the largest suppliers of construction materials in the country, has a large heavy vehicle footprint to support deliveries for our customers around Australia. Our commitment to road safety and Zero Harm starts with our own safety procedures and extends to educating drivers we share the road with.
“We are proud to continue Boral’s support of the RYDA program and National Road Safety Week. It is essential to educate young drivers and equip them with the tools they need to stay safe on the road. For us, this involves getting students up close to one of our trucks to see the road from a new perspective.
“Playing an active role in our partnership with Road Safety Education is a great experience for us and potentially life-changing lesson for the next generation of drivers.”
Terry Briss, CEO/Managing Director of Road Safety Education Australia, said: “Every year, the RYDA program reaches approximately 40,000 students and contributes towards saving young people’s lives on the road. We applaud schools for committing to this educational experience and thank our corporate partners for their continued support and assistance in the delivery of the program.
“We need to do more than just teach a young person the skill of controlling and manoeuvring a vehicle. We must also equip them with the skill of critical thinking and appreciation for safety on shared roads. The participation of our partners, including Boral, helps us continue delivering these educational experiences. Together, we are not only raising awareness of road safety but contributing to a reduction in road trauma – in short, helping to save young lives and reduce serious injury on our roads.”
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About Boral
Boral is the largest vertically-integrated construction materials company in Australia.
Our network includes prized quarry and cement infrastructure, bitumen, construction materials recycling, asphalt and concrete batching operations.
We employ about 7,500 employees and contractors across our operations that span more than 360 sites nation-wide.
For more than 75 years we’ve been building something great in Australia - rarely a day goes by that you wouldn’t pass one of our sites or trucks, enter a building, use a road, bridge, tunnel, footpath or other critical infrastructure that our people and products have helped enable.