Emotional Driving 2015-20
Motivated Drivers

Children, besides being the future drivers, are also the best motivation for their parents to drive responsibly. These are two compelling reasons to play a leading role in Emotional Driving, which developed a campaign specifically for them. Initially, the actions focused on the young children -between 9 and 12 years- of Gonvarri’s employees during open house days at the company’s factories. The success of the initiative led us to look for ways to reach as many children as possible, beyond the Gonvarri family. So Emotional Driving joined forces and commitment with AESLEME, the Pozuelo City Council and the Real Madrid Foundation to create different training and awareness campaigns aimed at children.

In just over two years these three-pronged projects have reached over 18,000 children and young people, who have received Emotional Driving’s message about road safety and responsibility at the wheel from a positive and motivating perspective. The idea behind the campaigns is that these children are the best appeal to conscience; their parents’ Jiminy Cricket when it comes to reminding them of those basic safety values they have learned thanks to Emotional Driving; lessons that, moreover, the children themselves will apply in a few years’ time, when it is their turn to get behind the wheel of a car.

It is a fact, which we have confirmed at Emotional Driving over these years, that no better driver exists than the one who is motivated by his own children.

EDSchool: Training and awareness

Emotional Driving and AESLEME are committed to contents and messages adapted to the moment of a child’s growth, so that children receive specific training according to their age.

This education incorporates technical aspects of road safety and also appeals to the children’s emotions and their own conscience. Thus, through its program Te Puede Pasar (It Can Happen to You), AESLEME trains and educates young people in road safety and instructs them, among other principles, to never cross red traffic lights, to warn their parents not look at their mobile phones while driving, and to never bike on the street unless accompanied by their parents or a responsible adult, and always with the necessary protection and precautions. This training is given by people who have been in traffic accidents or whose professional activity is to help and assist victims of traffic accidents. Men and women with serious injuries who share their experience and also tell how they have moved on; firefighters and police officers who explain how they feel about assisting a victim of a serious accident. Although these testimonies are adapted to what a child can take, their impact is still very powerful for them. For most children, it is the first time they come face to face with the darkest side of theroad, and this has a strong emotional impact on them. Suddenly they understand that driving is not only a normal and fun family trip, but that italso involves significant risks.

Once they have assimilated these concepts, EDSchool invites them to reflect and rethink. They are given a brochure with information on Gonvarri’s road safety program and a blank post-it. After the powerful testimonies, their feelings are stirred up and this makes it the ideal moment to express, in their own words, what they would say to their parents to make them drive safely.

Pozuelo de Alarcón: Children’s Road Safety Competition

Another important event to raise awareness among children about responsible driving is the Children’s Road Safety Competition in Pozuelo de Alarcón, organized by the local police and sponsored by Emotional Driving and AESLEME, among others. Students from 15 schools in the town -both public and private- submitted proposals in four categories: Drawing, Slogans, Models and WhatsApp Messages on Road Safety and Mobility. They shared a common theme: “Your emotional signs to improve road safety”. And one objective: to promote attitudes, habits and road values among Primary and High School students. The mayor of Pozuelo de Alarcón, Susana Pérez Quislant, valued the initiative very positively. “The fact that the numbers are so impressive, with the participation of hundreds of students and the completion of thousands of projects, and that they continue to be staged year after year, demonstrates that our commitment to Road Safety Education has the support of the educational community and the families of Pozuelo”, she said. The mayor also highlighted the work of the students: “your reflections filled with meaning, help us move forward, thanks to your talent and your imagination, in the implementation of initiatives that make us better pedestrians and better drivers”.

Groups with different capacities

As we have seen repeatedly throughout this book, in order to bring its message and values to the greatest number of people, in different areas of society, Emotional Driving has always sought out the best collaborating partners. In the case of people with different abilities, Gonvarri is part of the Real Madrid Foundation. An entity whose mission is to build bridges of cooperation between society and boys and girls with intellectual disabilities. As its president, Julio González Ronco, points out that it is a matter of training them in values through the practice of sports; values such as respect, autonomy or road safety.

In special schools, sessions of inclusive football and adapted basketball are held and which help introduce concepts complementary to the practice of sport. An integral education through sport. Going one step further, the Real Madrid Foundation has allied with Emotional Driving so that these boys and girls also receive training in road safety education, with the aim of improving their autonomy, self-confidence and level of social integration.

In these classes the students learn, for instance, to guide themselves by using traffic signs and lights, or to cross the street correctly. They are also taught to help people who need help. There are more than 1,000 beneficiaries, with different disabilities, who participate in this activity. The Foundation’s mascots, Valorcito or Valorgol, are responsible for transmitting these values, raising students awareness of the importance of road safety and their active participation in it.