OHL organizes the First International Road Safety Forum in Peru

The OHL Group has organized, together with Volvo Perú, the First International Road Safety Forum in that Andean country. Peru’s President, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, accompanied by the Minister of Transportation, Martín Vizcarra, inaugurated the event held on the 20th of October at the Lima Convention Center with the theme Road Safety, join in the change.

The Chairman of the OHL Group in Peru, Ricardo Vega Llona, and the General Manager of Volvo Perú, Marcus Herbert, accompanied the Peruvian president at the forum, which brought together more than 300 participants and featured both national and international experts on road safety, such as Pere Navarro, former Director General of Traffic in Spain.

President Kuczynski stated the need for reducing the death toll in traffic accidents on the country’s roads. He referred to Spain as an example, on recalling that, with eight times more vehicles registered in the country than in Peru, it succeeded in reducing the death toll in traffic accidents by 55% in the decade between 2004 and 2014. He pointed out that the country needs to invest physically and morally in road safety, as well as to improve the financing of the police forces and promote the technology applied to traffic safety on streets and highways. 

Ricardo Vega Llona noted that the forum had been organized by the private sector as part of the social agenda of the Peruvian company and its commitment to providing solutions to some of the problems of society. In this regard, the Forum brought together all of the sectors involved in road safety in an effort to initiate a joint analysis and  promote initiatives that will contribute to reducing accidents and minimizing their impact on public health and the development of Peru. For the OHL Chairman in Peru, “it is unconceivable that, having better vehicles and infrastructures, the number of traffic accident victims keeps growing, up to 30% in the last decade, due to a lack of a good-driving culture. Focusing on the human factor and strengthening the mechanisms of education, control and inspection are a part of the challenges to be met in the immediate future”.

Pere Navarro, whose policy was behind a significant drop in the accident rate on Spanish roads, expressed his conviction that Peru will achieve its goals in these areas and emphasized that road safety is a problem that involves all of society, the authorities, private enterprise and citizens alike. “Having a good road safety system means significant savings in suffering.  It should be a goal of the government, of the country. It should be an ethical and moral goal”, he underlined.

Other participants in the Forum included the President of the National Road Safety Council of Peru, Enrique Medri, the Director General of Land Transport of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, María Esperanza Jara; Adrián Revilla, the president of the Road Crusade Association and general manager of the Association of Banks of Peru, and Edwin Derteano, president of the Automobile Association of Peru and of Fundación Transitemos.