Bridgestone Sponsors Safety Design Award

Bridgestone Europe has announced that it will sponsor a new category – Best Safety Innovation – in the Interior Motives Design Awards in 2006. Organised by the automobile design magazine Interior Motives, the annual awards promote the importance of innovation in vehicle design by challenging design students from around the world to make their mark on future car design. Winners are rewarded with prizes and the chance to receive recognition from top figures in the international automotive design community.

More than 200 student teams entered the Interior Motives Design Awards in 2005 and the organisers expect even wider participation in the 9 categories this year. After a panel of distinguished automotive designers and other professionals from the design world have evaluated entries, winners will be announced at the Paris Motor Show in September 2006.

Under the theme ‘Revolution? – reinventing the automobile’, the 2006 awards include a safety innovation category for the first time, reflecting the growing importance of safety on the road. Bridgestone has linked up with the FIA Foundation (Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile) and national motoring clubs in a global ‘Think Before You Drive’ initiative promoting safer driving behaviour by pushing simple road safety messages and practical life-saving actions. In Europe, the campaign aims to help reduce by 2010 the 50,000 E.U. road deaths every year and is already active in 10 European countries.

Bridgestone reports that safety is central to its whole business philosophy and therefore joined in 2005 with more than 200 institutions, associations and companies in endorsing the aims of the European Road Safety Charter, one of the European Commission’s main initiatives in a bid to halve the number of EU road fatalities.

Bridgestone is also a G8 safety partner. The President of Bridgestone Corporation, Mr Shigeo Watanabe, is one of eight members of an international commission helping to strengthen global road safety on the political agenda. In June 2006, the “Lord Robertson commission” will publish recommended actions for reducing traffic deaths and serious injuries. Copies of the report will be sent to G8 heads of government in advance of the July 2006 G8 summit in St. Petersburg, Russia.