Social | Community
Activities related to road safety

Partnered with RYDA which is an initiative that provides traffic safety education, the Group hosted road safety workshops for young drivers in schools in Australia and New Zealand. In 2022, the program provided learning opportunities to more than 41,250 students. It promoted good habits and motivated the students to take responsible action as drivers and passengers to stay safe on roads.

The Group is making community safety more sustainable with its services, products and initiatives. For example, during Vietnam’s rainy seasons, many of the country’s worn-out wooden bridges pose significant safety challenges for people commuting to work and school. To help, the Bridge to Knowledge campaign, led by Bridgestone Tire Manufacturing Vietnam LLC, pledged to build 20 bridges across flood-prone Vietnam by 2030, and to maintain the bridges for 10 years.

The Group built two bridges in Vietnam in 2022, and as of the end of 2022 had completed a total of eight bridges. These new bridges serve over 2,000 people in the community. The infrastructure provides peace of mind and safe access to educational facilities and amenities.

In 2020, our technical team in Vietnam provided onsite training on road safety and tire safety knowledge to Yusen Logistics – our fleet customer who is the largest logistic provider in Vietnam. Road Safety stickers for trucks were also distributed to further encourage road safety practices.

In Phuket, Thailand, the Bridgestone Global Road Safety project was launched to raise children’s awareness of traffic safety and safe road behavior. Cooperating with the Global Road Safety Partnership and local partners, the program included events such as Road Safety Day with interactive games and contests calling for safe road behavior among students. The Group also improved local infrastructure to enhance the safety of school commuting routes.

Bridgestone Sales (Thailand) Co., Ltd. continued to support the Department of Land Transportation Thailand, in providing training course on "Safety driving & Traffic rules" for new drivers. Participants who successfully passed the series of trainings and tests are awarded their driving license at the end of the course. This Driving License Training Program has been ongoing since 1990, benefiting over 42,300 participants to date. The program has been conducted six times per year in Bangkok and in other provinces.

In China, the Group is promoting traffic safety programs together with Safe Kids China. Employee volunteers who attended training organized by Safe Kids China participated in field observations to collect data on road usage. These observations are used in the traffic safety education curriculum offered at local schools. The program, which is a collaboration with local traffic police and the community, engaged more than 800 students to inculcate road safety practices through interactive games. Safety helmets were distributed and students were taught how to wear the helmets properly. In addition, education and awareness building programs targeting parents were also conducted to help reinforce good road safety behavior. The program further implemented five school zone safety improvements such as clear signages on speed limits, safe crossing reminders just outside schools, and improved pedestrian crossing markings.

Local statistics based on a 2020 survey showed that 58.8% of visually impaired were not able to visit hospital when they needed to. The death rate for the visually impaired and the blind due to road accidents is a lot higher than for the non-blind. In engaging the Korea Blind Union, Bridgestone Tire Sales Korea, Ltd. (BSTK) came to realize the mobility challenges the visually impaired were facing, including lack of infrastructure such as tactile paving, safe mobility tools to facilitate movement, and transportation. The difficulty in venturing out led to many visually impaired people fearing for their safety and ending up staying home, further disconnecting them socially. BSTK established a program in 2022 to provide audible pedestrian signal remote control devices to 500 people, and also distributed 1,500 taxi coupons and vouchers with funding provided in collaboration with the Korean government. BSTK also coordinated with the local Korea Blind Union to provide staff with training from the Carroll Center, a premier vision rehabilitation center well known for providing help to the visually impaired to facilitate their ability to live independently. All these efforts contribute to the recipients’ safer mobility and peace of mind.

Bridgestone Asia Pacific is a proud recipient of two Gold Awards, in the two categories of Best Environmental Excellence and CSR and ESG Leadership at the 14th Global CSR and ESG Awards. The company’s environment and biodiversity conservation efforts, as well as its efforts in social value creation and caring for the community, in particular road safety, has earned the company these accolades. Guided by the Bridgestone E8 Commitment (in particular “Energy,” “Ecology,” “Ease” and “Empowerment”), Bridgestone Asia Pacific will continue its efforts in value creation for both customers and society, toward its 2050 vision.

This is the 5th consecutive year for Bridgestone Asia Pacific and its group companies to be recognized for its CSR initiatives at the Global CSR and ESG Awards organized by Pinnacle Group International.
For more details, please see the press release.

Bridgestone Cycle Co., Ltd. has been working with the Japan Traffic Safety Education Association to hold a special training course on the safe riding of bicycles at local kindergartens, day care centers, and elementary schools in Ageo City since 2005. The participating children carry out activities to learn best practices for the safe riding of bicycles. Highlight topics include "safety checks before riding," the "importance of wearing helmets," how to cross intersections and crossings," and "precautions to take when passing parked cars." Bridgestone Cycle Co., Ltd. provides the bicycles used for the course and takes part in bicycle safety checks.

Think Before You Drive, a safe-driving awareness program launched by Bridgestone Americas, Inc. (BSAM) in 2005, aims to instill in drivers the importance of traffic safety through educational programs and materials. The program conveys the importance of following the basic rules essential for safe driving, such as always wearing a seatbelt and keeping tires aligned and balanced.

BSAM has been partnering with universities and government agencies to implement this program for kids, students, and drivers to reduce traffic accidents and dangerous driving. Since 2015, these materials have reached more than 72,000 people in Mexico, Costa Rica, Colombia and Ecuador. In Costa Rica, the program has been continued since 2011, while it was re-launched in 2022 using an e-learning platform due to post COVID-19.

Think Before You Drive – Kids is geared to children 6 and 12 years old with the aim of educating them through road safety tips and inspiring an awareness of the behavior required to travel safely on the roads. The online program includes informative video clips, learning activities and interactive games, including content that gives them an early insight into the importance of tire safety and maintenance. In 2022, the program reached out to four schools and engaged with more than 1,500 students.

In Poznan, Poland, employee volunteers have been involved in traffic safety education since 2008. Interactive traffic safety lessons are conducted with the Bridgestone Test Dummy characters. To date, 450 workshops have been delivered to over 36,000 students in more than 550 schools in and around Poznan.

More than 5,000 pedestrians and bicycle riders in Poznan and Wielkopolska, Poland received reflective bands from the Bridgestone Test Dummy to help them be more protected at night. The program is flexible to the needs of communities. In fact, the start of the program took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, so in addition to the reflective bands, residents also received face masks and hand sanitizer. Today, the company distributes reflective bands with the Test Dummy every autumn.

Helping professional drivers operate safely also is a priority of the Group. Since 2020, a month long, Bridgestone-led “Eyes on the Road” campaign helped truck drivers across Middle East Africa (MEA) understand the importance of physical fitness, ergonomics, nutrition and eye health to safely performing their jobs. In April 2022, more than 600 fleet drivers participated in this campaign.

In order to contribute to a healthier and safer society in line with the Group’s Mission of “Serving Society with Superior Quality” and to engage with truck drivers to establish an emotional connection, the company continuously focuses on communicating through its “Eyes on the Road” campaign and further improving the content. As of the end of 2022, the company had conducted more than 8,000 health checks across MEA.

To help ensure safe mobility on the road and reduce the number of traffic accidents, Bridgestone India Private Ltd. focused on developing truck driving skills and providing a vision correction program for truckers. The Group implemented both initiatives with the help of its employee volunteers. To date, 450 youths have been trained as skilled commercial drivers, 11,000 truckers have undergone vision check-ups and treatment, with 2,520 spectacles distributed to truckers for vision correction. Additionally, the program provided counseling sessions focused on adopting healthier lifestyles. In 2022, 256 more truckers were trained and 3,137 truckers underwent vision check-ups and treatment.

Bridgestone EMIA Technology Center employees created the Cultire program to inform young generations in high school about road safety, leveraging the competencies of its Technology Center. These road safety seminars held by the Technology Center volunteers have a special focus on tires, and target increased awareness of tire importance for road safety. These seminars, which started in 2017, have been provided to approximately 450 high school students and 250 young unemployed people attending Vocational Master training. In 2022, three sessions were held, involving six volunteers and reaching 30 students.