Boral extend partnership with Road Safety Education
Company to continue delivering life-saving heavy vehicle and road safety education programmes for students
BORAL Ltd have renewed their longstanding partnership with Road Safety Education Ltd (RSE), as part of their commitment to Zero Harm. The company has been a corporate partner of the leading learning and not-for-profit organization since 2018.
RSE is behind the Ryda road safety programme that has been delivered to more than 735,000 young Australians nationally. It is also a founding principal partner of National Road Safety Week, an annual initiative that aims to highlight the impact of road trauma and ways to reduce it, supported by governments and businesses across Australia and New Zealand, including Boral.
Boral’s announcement coincides with this year’s National Road Safety Week, which runs from 11–18 May.
Road fatalities continue to rise each year, with more than 1,300 people killed on Australian roads in 2024, a 3.8% increase on the previous year. Traffic injury is the biggest killer of Australian children under 15 and the second-biggest killer of all Australians aged between 15 and 24.
Tens of thousands of students each year participate in Ryda school programmes, in which they learn the tools, habits, and behaviours to stay safe on roads.
Boral provided input into the development of a Ryda topic that sees students investigate the challenges faced by heavy vehicle drivers and how to predict any actions they may need to take to accommodate them. There have also been opportunities for heavy vehicles to be present at the workshops to help students understand, with a real-life experience, the risks and considerations when sharing the road with trucks. Participating students get to talk to a Boral driver and sit in the truck’s cabin to learn first-hand about the risk factors such as truck blind spots and stopping distances.
Richard Pearson, Boral’s executive general manager of asphalt, said: ‘We are proud to be a longstanding partner of RSE and the Ryda programme. Through the various programmes we have helped to deliver, we have seen first-hand the engagement and benefits students have had in talking to Boral drivers and learning about the trucks and heavy vehicles and, more importantly how they can make safe choices around them.
‘As one of the largest suppliers of construction materials in Australia, we have a large heavy vehicle footprint – about 3,500 heavy vehicles – and are on the road everyday delivering to customers. We are committed to better educating the next generation of drivers and others with whom we share the road.’
Terry Briss, group chief executive officer/managing director of Road Safety Education, said: ‘We are pleased Boral have recommitted to their partnership with RSE and are helping deliver much-needed, potentially life-saving heavy vehicle safety education. We need to do more than just teach a young person the skill of controlling and manoeuvring a vehicle; we must also equip them with the skill of critical thinking and appreciation for safety on shared roads.
‘Every year, the Ryda programme reaches approximately 50,000 students throughout Australia and contributes towards saving young people’s lives on the road. Schools recognize the value of Ryda to their students and are committing in increasing numbers to this educational experience.
‘We thank our corporate partners, including Boral, for their continued support in the delivery of the programme. Together, we are not only teaching critical strategies on road safety but contributing to a reduction in road trauma – in short, helping to save young lives and reduce serious injury on our roads.’
