I. Traffic Behaviour

Goal: Safety for children in road traffic, sensitivity to speed, wearing safety belts when travelling by car.

Action 1:      We will create a book for children on the subject "Safety for children in road traffic", The book will be published with support of AXA's Foundation for Prevention in cooperation with the publishing company NordSüd. One edition will be available for free in most AXA agencies. Another edition will be officially available in book stores at lower price, which will be made possible through partial funding by the AXA Foundation for Prevention. The book production will be launched in cooperation with the BFU (Beratungsstelle für Unfallverhütung) - Council for Accident Prevention.

Action 2:      We will make available 10 mobile cycling exercise facilities for children promoting cycling skills. These facilities can be rented free of charge for events all over Switzerland together with a professional trainer and will be launched through AXA's Foundation for Prevention.

Action 3:      We will establish a crash simulator at the Museum of Transport in Lucerne, where the topic "Wearing seatbelts in the front and in the back" will be in focus.

 

II Vehicle Safety

Goal:           Promote knowledge of driver assistance systems.

Action 1:      We will launch a prevention campaign on driver assistance systems.

Driver assistance systems (FAS - Fahrer-Assistenz-Systeme) can prevent accidents. However, the Swiss population is not aware of their importance. Therefore, the BFU and AXA Foundation for Prevention are launching an information campaign. Its goal is to make FAS more popular in the public and promote its dissemination.

About 90% of all road accidents are due to miscalculation or drivers behaviour, and this is where the Driver-Assistance-Systems are indispensable. These intelligent passengers, such as anti-lock braking system (ABS) and electronic stability control (ESC), identify the danger, warn and relieve the driver, and in some delicate situations even make corrections.

FAS has a huge significance: thanks to driver assistance systems, namely, 50% of serious accidents can be avoided. Since the advantages of FAS are not well known, the BFU and the AXA Foundation for Prevention will launch a three-years information campaign "Does your car anticipates? Upt to 50% less accidents with FAS", using posters, online banners and print ads. The heart of the initiative is the website www.Auto-IQ.ch, where we will publish useful information about this intelligent passenger. The campaign slogan is "Cars with FAS are smarter - and therefore safer".

Action 2: We will make available crash recorders (black boxes) for all AXA Winterthur's motor vehicle customers, including an advertising campaign.

Function: Crash recorder is similar to accident data recorder and records data 20 seconds before and 10 seconds after the accident. Thus, the driving behaviour can be investigated, for example, whether the driver has braked or accelerated. Based on these data we will be able to reconstruct accidents much better.

The AXA Winterthur, on the one hand, wants to get the benefits in terms of accident reconstruction; on the other hand, AXA wants to contribute to reducing the number of accident among young drivers. It has been proven that crash recorders have preventive effect and make drivers behave more careful on the road.

 

III Transport Industry

Goal: Our fleet customers should be able to make use of our extensive know-how and accident research, and thus improve their preventive efforts.

Action: We will present information on accident prevention for all AXA's fleet customers, as well as launch an event on the topic "fleet prevention".

IV. Accident Research

Goal: AXA Winterthur's in-house accident research looks into the reasons for and consequences of traffic accidents and provides important basic principles for the introduction of prevention initiatives.

Action: We will conduct ongoing research accident causes on Swiss roads.

V. Cooperation with other European countries: all documentation, brochures, information and promotional material, etc., are always published in our 3 national languages (German, French and Italian), thus available for European Union countries.

With regard to accident investigation: every year we carry out "crash tests" in Wildhaus. On the media days, representatives from European Union countries (DEKRA, insurance companies, police, etc.) visit AXA Winterthur.

 

Duration of our commitment: 3 years.