Students organized the event "Don’t forget the basics, Ride a Bike!" with the support of the Police and the Braila City Hall, to raise awareness on the importance of autonomous, healthy and safe access to city spaces.
Tes Idées
Once upon a time Braila city was more than wealthy and the most technological advanced and cultural exquisite city in the country thanks to its geographical position: on the left bank of the Danube river, not far from the Danube Delta. This location was favorable for agriculture, industry and trading as well. Nowadays these heavenly images are just history. Braila city is now confronted with the all modern issues which challenge every city around the world, including the traffic jams and lack of infrastructure.
These two last but not least problems have been causing, according to statistics of the police, a human life lost and 10 others injuries in road accidents every week. It means that in 2016 there were 41 deaths, 520 injuries and 403 accidents. Now, in order to solve this situation, the municipality is straining to improve traffic conditions in Braila city, building up roundabouts in every crowded crossroads and eliminating inappropriate means of transportation.
The students from the 10th grade B, have decided to involve themselves in this endeavour of a major stake and this international project is just perfect to them. Their idea is that they might strengthen relationships with the people who are responsible for roads safety and give them a few hints. Going from the fact that every morning students are brought to school in cars by their parents, they thought that it could be a great release for traffic, parents and policemen if they would come to school by bikes. Unfortunately, the only bike lanes in our town are the ones from the local park.
That’s why they tried to find out a few safety itineraries for bike lanes. In order to come to a solution they organized themselves in small groups and shared different tasks as follow: contact and discus on subject with Deputy Major and his staff and other officials from Police, Universities, Environment Protection Org., Red Cross Medical Org., parents and drivers. Then they put together all gathered information, studied the websites “The future of our cities” and “The actors of prevention and safety road” and started debating. In this way they have suffered the consequences that a person is never too young for road safety education and that this road education should be done in schools, too.
Tes initiatives
The pupils promoted the project with the help of the guildhall. It was approved that our initiative “Don’t forget the basics, Ride a Bike!” would monitor the convenient route as a permanent one to school. The guildhall informed the police about our event on the 25th of May; unfortunately it happens that at the established date for the event - 29th of May, Braicar (the transport service of Braila city) had gone on strike and we had to postpone the action because of the lack of support from the police who was in short at that moment. This initiative is an invitation to reflect on individual and community habits and lifestyles, creating a dialogue between policemen, town hall and students, a dialogue that can bring positive changes to some aspects of the concept of safety in classroom, school and in the local community.
This initiative is important because young people love to bike and this could be a good opportunity to be together and feel free.
In order to get a feedback, we realized a few interviews with the most enthusiastic people attending the project. They emphasized the efficiency of their ideas and manifested a strong desire to implement this project.
With the article from Objective - The Voice of Braila, our local newspaper, we have further spread the initiative with all our community!
Recently we have received from the police an official reply regarding our request for making a bike lane on Independence Boulevard. The project after all has a major impact on our town and community.
