For the first time, administrators in all 50 states of America have committed to include consistent information about tire safety in state-mandated training materials for new drivers.
Michelin North America and FIA, the world governing body for motorsports and global leader in road-safety advocacy, launched the award-winning program “Beyond the Driving Test” in late 2014. The aim was to persuade traffic-safety regulators in every state to include information about tread depth and tire pressure in their mandatory training materials for teen drivers. At the time, only a handful of states included this basic information.
“In the beginning, Michelin and FIA described our ambition as ‘50 by 20’ with the hopes of securing these commitments from every state by 2020. The goal seemed audacious; we had no idea how to achieve it at the start,” said Pete Selleck, chairman and president of Michelin North America.
“Our campaign found support with some key organizations in an active and fervent traffic-safety community, and their involvement made it possible to complete our mission more than two years ahead of schedule.”
Beyond the Driving Test has reached nearly 1,000 driving instructors and more than 200,000 students with tire-safety messages to date. Since securing commitments from all 50 states, 26 states already have published new training materials with tire-safety information.
“The number of young people who lose their lives in avoidable road crashes is unacceptable. We need to change road users’ attitudes and promote safe behaviors on our roads. Education programs and awareness-raising campaigns are important safety measures that deserve continuing support by state and local governments in America,” said Jean Todt, President of FIA and the U.N. Secretary General’s Special Envoy for Road Safety. “Michelin’s achievement in teen driving safety is strongly in line with the FIA #3500lives campaign and its global goal of reducing young driver accidents. I encourage the American road-safety community to continue improving these mandatory training and education programs for teen drivers.”
FIA’s global ‘#3500Lives’ campaign calls attention to the lives lost on roadways every day around the world, and especially deaths among younger drivers.
