Campaign NEUŽGESK: Statistics Gives Hope and Makes One Think

On Sunday November 15, road accident victims will be remembered all over the world. In Lithuania this day will be highlighted by the logo of the campaign NEUŽGESK (Keep Sparking).

According to the data of the Lithuanian Road Police, during thirty years of Lithuanian independence more than fifteen thousand people died on Lithuanian roads. However, it should be pointed out that in 1991 the number of victims was 1,173, whereas in 2019 – 186.

The Director of SE Lithuanian Road Administration Remigijus Lipkevičius states that the goal is to implement the Lithuanian traffic safety strategy Vizion Zero, which means no victims on Lithuanian roads by 2050. To attain the ends, educational activities are held and traffic safety and traffic accident mitigating measures are implemented in cooperation with various institutions.

Even though the situation on Lithuanian roads has been slightly changing, it is still very fragile and gives little hope. All losses are extremely hurtful. Compared to the period of January-October last year, in Lithuania 2.28 per cent less traffic accidents occurred (2019  – 2,632, 2020 – 2,572); the number of fatalities decreased by 15 per cent (2019 – 158, 2020 – 135) and the number of injured decreased by 4.8 per cent (2019 – 3,125, 2020 – 2,975).

The World Day of Remembrance of Road Victims has been held in various countries since 2005. The Day was initiated due to dreadful statistics: each year more than one million people die, fifty million are injured and a huge number of them become disabled on the roads of the planet. Every day more than three thousand lives are lost on the Earth.

To remember road victims, the campaign NEUŽGESK (Keep Sparking) is held. We kindly remind that various institutions and organizations are invited to mark their websites en gratis with the logo NEUŽGESK. Mass media are invited to mark their programmes with the mentioned logo and to dedicate this day to traffic safety issues and encourage road users to behave mindfully on the road. The logo could be donwloaded at: https://lakd.lrv.lt/lt/eismo-sauga/akcija-neuzgesk

Physical entities may mark their Facebook profile photos with the logo mentioned above. A social network user will find several frames dedicated to the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims upon entering the key word ‘neužgesk’.