Pitch EIT awards 2024 - Axel Rimbaud

Pitch for the 2024 EIT (European Institute of Innovation and Technology) awards, in the category “Changemaker” of Axel Rimbaud, representing MEL (Movimiento contra el Exceso de velocidad Letal) and the EIT Urban Mobility.

#EITAwards #RoadSafety #Speed #Speeding #SeguridadVial #SécuritéRoutière #EITCommunity #EITUrbanMobility

Hello everyone, my name is Axel and I have been selected for the EIT changemaker awards, representing MEL, a Road Safety NGO in Chile, and the EIT Urban Mobility.
As my work is related to road safety it is important to keep in mind that according to the World Health Organization, road crashes are the first cause of death for children, teenagers and young adults in the world. (Between 5 to 29 years old) and that each year 1.19 million people die on the world’s roads.
I discovered this fact in 2018, when Melody, my girlfriend, was killed by a reckless driver.
With Melody’s friends and family, we started MEL, Movimiento contra el Exceso de velocidad Letal or Movement against lethal speeding and we have been working ever since to reduce fatalities and serious injuries on the roads.
We focused on speeding as it is the leading cause of death on the Chilean roads and according to the WHO it represents 1/3 of the fatalities globally. Speed increases the likelihood of a crash as it narrows down the driver’s vision and increases braking distance and if the crash does occur, speed increases the consequences.
In order to reduce fatalities due to speed in Chile, we created a strategy, we wanted to reduce speed limits, improve enforcement and increase sanctions.
When we started on our mission, many NGOs were already working to reduce the speed limit in Urban areas from 60 to 50 Km/h. We joined this fight and together we manage to get the law approved in August 2018
Then, we created alliances with other NGOs, members of the civil society, the ministry of Transport, the commission of Road Safety and members of congress. Together, we helped improve and get approved a law project to create a national speed camera system in Chile in 2023
Finally, we advocated for stronger sanction for high speeding, which became law in October 2022.
In 2021, I joined the EIT Urban Mobility master program, where I increased my transport engineering skills and met with a great group of students, passionate and dedicated to making the streets of Europe more sustainable and safer.
And this is needed as annually more than 20 thousand people die on the European roads.
In order to reduce those numbers, I became a road safety guest lecturer for the EIT Urban Mobility master program and teach the next generation.
Together with the EIT Urban mobility we created content about road safety.
And finally, thanks to this master program, I managed to become a road safety study leader for the Cerema, a French technical public administration. There I do road safety study for the French state, local governments, and municipalities, recommending solutions to make French roads safer.
I thank you for your time and together we can stop road fatalities.