8 November 2018

Boral Limited and Road Safety Education Limited (RSE) today announced they are joining forces to help make Australia’s roads safer, signing a three-year sponsorship agreement that will help provide driver education to over 40,000 senior high school students every year.

The community partnership will see Boral become a major sponsor for RSE’s flagship program RYDA, which provides young drivers with life-saving knowledge and skills.

Now in its 17th year, the national program involves senior high school students and focuses on cognition development, helping students develop and practise personalised strategies and life skills which will help them respond positively to challenges on the road, both as drivers and highly influential passengers.

The Divisional Chief Executive of Boral Australia, Joe Goss, said the partnership program provided an invaluable opportunity for Boral – an industry leader when it comes to safety and an operator of over 2,500 heavy vehicles in Australia – to work with RSE to help improve road safety.

“We are particularly excited about joining forces with RSE, whose programs are recognised as world class and have provided vital driver education skills to more than 500,000 students in high schools across the country over the past 17 years,” said Mr Goss.

“Boral takes safety extremely seriously, with a commitment to zero harm across our operations, including our drivers on public roads.

“We have a strong focus on safety and training for our drivers, but 93 percent of fatal accidents involving heavy vehicles are not caused by the driver of the heavy vehicle. So there is an obvious gap, which this new road safety partnership will attempt to address.

“We are looking forward to working with RSE and sharing our knowledge to help develop additional education material and awareness training for young drivers when it comes to
sharing the road with heavy vehicles. This means improving road safety for young people, heavy vehicle drivers and the community more broadly.”

The CEO & Managing Director of RSE, Terry Birss, said the organisation was delighted to be partnering with Boral and was deeply appreciative of Boral’s significant commitment to the RYDA program.

“Boral is supporting our mission of providing young Australian road users with learning that supports the development of a road safety culture across the generations,” Mr Birss said.

“Road safety is a shared responsibility and making our roads safer requires the support of organisations such as Boral.

“Youth road trauma is a community tragedy that needs a whole of community response. Road trauma levels have declined over the years, however, the annual economic cost of road crashes in Australia is estimated at $27 billion, and the social impacts are devastating.

“By joining the RYDA family, Boral and RSE will work towards their goal of achieving zero harm and educating all novice drivers and their passengers on road safety.”

Fatal crashes on Australian roads involving heavy vehicles decreased by an average of 2.0 per cent per year over the three years to June 2018. Boral and RSE believe that the increased heavy vehicle awareness and knowledge within the community achieved through this partnership will help deliver even bigger improvements.