In 2016 there were 175,791 road accidents involving personal injury in Italy, resulting in 3,283 deaths and 249,175 injuries. Among the fatalities, there was a net increase for cyclists (275, +9.6%) and moped riders (116, +10.5%), while there was a decrease for motorcyclists (657, -15.0%) and pedestrians (570, -5.3%).

This is the overall picture of road accidents in our country that emerged from the latest ISTAT report for 2016.

A remarkable year in which the number of deaths fell compared to 2015 (-4.2%), while accidents and injuries, especially serious ones, increased for the first time since 2001.

The decrease in the number of fatalities in Italy – ISTAT points out – is mainly due to the drop recorded on motorways (including ring roads and motorway junctions) and non-urban roads (274 and 1,546 deaths; -10.2 and -4.6% on the previous year). There was a smaller drop in the number of deaths on urban roads (1,463 deaths; -2.6%); the drop in the number of deaths in large towns was more substantial: 6.5%.

Some of the incorrect behaviours that cause accidents are the same ones that Safety21 seeks to prevent with its monitoring and training projects: driver distraction, failure to respect right of way and excessive speed are the most frequent causes, while speeding, failure to use safety devices and the use of mobile phones while driving are the most frequently penalised traffic offences.

A new addition to Safety21. HAT Sicaf, an investment fund belonging to the HAT Orizzonte Group, acquired a 30% stake for approximately €6 million, mainly through a capital increase.

HAT Sicaf is an investment fund that specialises in private equity transactions. It is promoted and controlled by managing partners Nino Attanasio and Ignazio Castiglioni and is owned by leading Italian entrepreneurs as well as by Fondo Italiano d’Investimento (Italian Investment Fund), the latter controlled by Cassa Depositi e Prestiti and other leading Italian banks.

Representing HAT Sicaf, Nino Attanasio and Ignazio Castiglioni, respectively Chairman and CEO of the HAT Orizzonte Group, thus joined the Safety21 Board of Directors in July 2016.

“We are very pleased”, commented Ignazio Castiglioni, “to announce our investment in Safety21, an outstanding and innovative Italian technology company that plays an important role in road safety and has a highly scalable business”.

HAT, which has the objective of accelerating the development of the companies in which it invests, will support Safety21’s management in its growth through the consolidation of its market position.

During the last Exhibition of Justice in Rome, Safety21 sponsored a conference entitled “Ti voglio bene: La sicurezza stradale cresce con noi” (I love you: Road safety grows with us): a forum for young people and institutions, to promote a culture of legality on the road, reflect together on European and Italian accident figures, and focus on the objectives needed to reduce accidents.

Moderated by Rai Isoradio journalist Elena Carbonari, and introduced by Safety21 CEO Gianluca Longo, the conference focused on directly involving the students in the audience and saw the participation of the Deputy Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Riccardo Nencini, the Undersecretary for Justice, Cosimo Ferri, Giuseppe Bisogno, Director of the State Police Traffic Unit and Antonello Salzano for the Italian Automobile Club.

The participants discussed technology, safety statistics, the institutions’ commitment to increasing road safety, and the topic of vehicular homicide, which included the moving testimony of Stefano Guarnieri, President of the Lorenzo Guarnieri Onlus Association and father of Lorenzo, a young road accident victim.

Check out the highlights of the forum.

Those of us who support the values of good road sense now have a new ally by our side. Twenty-six years after the launch of the Associazione Sostenitori ed Amici della Polizia Stradale (Association of Supporters and Friends of the Traffic Police), the ASAPS Foundation was formed: an ethical and social alliance for road and urban safety, of which Safety21, which has always supported ASAPS, is proud to be a founding member.

The Foundation’s values and objectives are based on the activities carried out by the Association, chaired and founded in 1991 by Giordano Biserni, and it was set up with the aim of bringing together under one roof the numerous requests of all those – citizens, associations and businesses, police forces, rescue operators – who are involved in safeguarding urban and road safety.

Different parties, one awareness: levels of safety also correspond to an institution’s ability to take charge of the risks to which the public are exposed and provide solutions to deal with them.

The cornerstones of the Foundation’s programme will be information, vocational training, advice, and research.

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Safety21 at the Italian Tech Tour: our company was selected as one of the 50 fastest growing companies in Europe.

We were presented with an award at the Rome stage of the Italian Tech Tour 2016. This international event aimed at matching emerging or already established start-ups/innovative companies with European investors, venture capitalists, corporate investors and business angels kicked off at Invitalia’s Rome offices with Safety21’s participation The basis of the award is Tech Tour’s selection of the fifty European start-ups that have grown the most in the last ten years.

Safety21 was also among the 2,000 professionals taking part in the Microsoft Forum 2017, the event in Milan where Microsoft opened a lively debate on the digital revolution and the prospects of Industry 4.0.

Within the Exhibition Area, which took the form of an experiential path to discover how new technologies are capable of revolutionising the industrial world and society in a smart and IoT context, Safety21, as a Microsoft Partner, presented the smart city project Safe Pedestrian 2.0.

Based on Microsoft’s cloud and IoT, our Safety 2.0 solution uses sensors and analysis tools to detect and alert cars to the presence of pedestrians at pedestrian crossings without traffic lights and to enable authorities to view live and on-demand footage of the crossing. An evolved response to the safety needs of every contemporary and future city.

Read the Wired article

The year 2017 is a year of strong growth for the Safety21 Group. With a view to offering increasingly integrated and advanced outsourcing services, Safety21 has founded A21 Riscossioni Srl in partnership with the Engineering Group.

This new Group company, through which Safety21 becomes, to all intents and purposes, an all-round partner for Public Authorities, provides specialised services to support service operators and Public Authorities in managing the enforced collection of traffic offence-related receivables.

These outsourced services, offered through a team of experts specialised in credit analysis, evaluation and collection procedures, are fully integrated with the services offered by Safety21 and with the highest levels of security and data protection in information management

On 24th March, during the seminar organised by the Municipality of Verona entitled ‘Vehicular homicide one year on’, ASAPS (Association of Supporters and Friends of the Traffic Police) presented data on hit-and-runs in 2016: an interesting assessment that put into perspective the nine months in which Law No. 41 of 24 March 2016 on Vehicular Homicide and Road Injury had been in force. The facts considered in the drafting are the most serious throughout the country.

The data that emerges is clear: in 2016, the number of incidents rose 9.6% compared to the previous year, but the number of deaths fell sharply to 115 compared to 146 in 2015 (-21.2%). A total of 84.6% of all hit-and-runs – 1,009 compared with 183 – took place during the day and, once again, it was the most vulnerable road users, children and the elderly, who paid the highest price (9.5% and 8.2% respectively).

Pedestrians are still the most severely affected category, with 444 casualties: 54 deaths, accounting for 47% of total deaths (down from 2015 when there were 76 and 52% of total deaths), and 441 injuries (30.9%).

How, then, do we explain the fact that incidents have increased and deaths have decreased? There is only one indication, warns ASAPS: positive tests for alcohol and drugs amongst identified perpetrators are declining. In 2016 they totalled 15.3%, while in 2015 they had been 17.5%.

In addition, 55.3% of perpetrators were caught in 2016, down slightly from 56.2% in 2015, while 44.7% remain unknown. The percentage of perpetrators who were identified in fatal hit-and-runs was higher. In this case, it was close to 60%.

In the last 15 years (2001 -2015), 10,940 pedestrians have died on Italian roads and 291,044 have been injured, with an average of 729 deaths and 19,403 injuries per year: that amounts to 2 deaths per day and 53 admissions to Italian accident and emergency departments each day. This was announced by ASAPS (Association of Supporters and Friends of the Traffic Police) in a recent survey covering the fifteen-year period from 2001-2015.

The worst year was 2002 with 1,226 pedestrians killed on the roads, a tragic figure. A slow improvement followed. And yet, although there are many disturbing statistics in this picture, there is one that is of particular concern to ASAPS, and to us too, and that relates to pedestrian accidents. In 2015, according to ISTAT data, there were 602 pedestrian fatalities, the worst figure in the last five years, surpassed only by the 621 fatalities in 2010. In 2001, pedestrians accounted for 14.5% of all road deaths; in 2015 they accounted for 17.6%. Taking it a step further, in 2016 out of 115 deaths in hit-and-run accidents according to the ASAPS Observatory, pedestrians accounted for 47%.

This upward trend is due to the convergence of several factors: in addition to the danger posed by drunk drivers, there is now a growing risk of distraction from mobile phone use while driving and at the same time the safety, visibility and lighting of pedestrian crossings are often as poorly managed as controls on crossing behaviour.

This is a fact that calls us not only to reflection but also to action. At Safety21, we are focusing our research and development activities on high-tech safety solutions in this field, including those designed to protect pedestrian crossings. We are working to ensure that statistics such as these do not remain just a number, but represent a constant reminder to seek solutions through innovation and shared objectives.