New Zealand lights up for road safety

The Yellow Ribbon National Road Safety Alliance was established in 2016 in New Zealand in concert with Road Safety Education Limited’s NZ partners (BOC, NZ Steel, Bridgestone and AMI) and Brake, the road safety charity.  The goal of the Alliance is to draw attention to road safety through symbolism that includes wearing a yellow ribbon and the lighting up of icons, buildings and bridges – particularly around road safety weeks.  The Alliance marked the important presence of the yellow ribon on both sides of the Tasman, following the establishment of National Road Safety Week in Australia, of which Road Safety Education Limited is a Principal Partner.

This year in New Zealand, for the first time, the Alliance arranged to have 6 different icons lit up in yellow around NZ, including the Auckland Harbour Bridge which was lit up following the RSE Supporting Excellence Awards evening, which ran as a precursor to the official launch for  NZ Road Safety Week.  The other icons lit up during the week were; The Whangarei Bridges (which stayed lit for the whole month), Anzac Parade Bridge in Hamilton, the Upper Hutt Fantail, Michael Fowler Centre (Wellington) and the Oamaru Opera house.

Along with lighting up icons we also encouraged people to wear yellow and yellow ribbon pins.  RSE NZ Manager Maria Lovelock said “We were really grateful to Vector Lights for supporting the Yellow Ribbon Alliance by lighting up the Auckland Harbour Bridge, this served as the inspiration needed to encourage other towns and cities to get involved this year.  We expect this movement to gain momentum and hope to add other towns and cities in 2021.”

Several of our partners also joined in the fun running wear yellow to work days and signing pledges towards reducing road trauma.  Our partners also celebrated the achievements of individuals and groups through RSE’s Supporting Excellence in Road Safety Awards.  New Zealand’s 2021 Road Safety week is running from the 17 –  23 May and will be part of the Global UN Road Safety week.