In March 2010, the United Nations officially declared the “Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011–2020” with the intention of “stabilizing and reducing the forecast level of road traffic deaths, injuries, and disabilities around the world.”1
This initiative launched an international 10-year plan in which governments and communities all over the world undertook programs to improve road safety. It dovetailed with the Canadian Government’s third national Road Safety Strategy (RSS) 2015, which was launched in 2011 and ended in 2015, and with the one currently in effect, the fourth national Road Safety Strategy (RSS) 2025, which has as its purpose:
…to continue our national effort in addressing important road safety issues in Canada by providing a framework for governments and other road safety stakeholders to establish their own road safety plans, objectives, and interventions to eliminate road crashes which result in serious injuries or fatalities.2
Mr. Vic Leach, former Chair of the Reflection for Pedestrian Safety Committee with the Sapperton Old Age Pensioners Association in New Westminster, British Columbia, has been actively working toward the development of standards of reflectivity for more than two years. To this end, in British Columbia on February 16, 2016, Mr. Leach presented a motion at New Westminster City Council meeting to require standards of reflective clothing, products, and accessories for non-professional road users, citing UN’s declared Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020 for further context. New Westminster City Council passed the motion and adopted a resolution to request that the federal Minister of Transport and the provincial Minister of Transportation & Infrastructure require standards of reflectivity.
Later in 2016, New Westminster City Council brought forward this resolution as a motion to the Annual General Meeting of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM), who adopted this resolution as well. In October 2016, Mr. Clark Somerville, President of the FCM, wrote a letter to the Hon. Mark Garneau, federal Minister of Transport, expressing support for the federal government requiring “a standard for reflective clothing, products and accessories for non-professional road users.”
Though not officially a representative of Finnex Reflectors, Mr. Leach has been in discussion with our company on joint efforts to support the creation of these standards with the Canadian Standards Association. Together with Mr. Leach, we continue to work on supporting the creation of standards of reflectivity.
Finnex Reflectors is currently working on several public campaigns to raise awareness among the general population about safety for all road users, with particular attention on making use of personal safety reflectors.
1. For more information, see the Decade of Action official website.↩
2. For more information, download Canada’s Road Safety Strategy 2025 (1.2 MB PDF).↩