VIDEO: "Their lives are more important than any delivery"
“My kids are my inspiration to work here in Dubai, to provide them with a good education.”
“Now I need to take care of my Daddy… he is dependent on me.”
These are the reasons some of the men who deliver our food are living in Dubai, and “their lives are more important than any delivery” according to one food company.
Freedom Pizza have personalised each one of their 125 drivers’ helmets with messages like ‘I am a son’, ‘I am a father’ or ‘I am a husband’. The helmets also have a photograph of each of the driver’s loved ones printed on them.
The goal is to reduce reckless driving around each delivery driver.
Understanding how their delivery drivers are jeapordising their lives each day in order to support either themselves or their families, made Freedom Pizza launch the initiative #SafetyDelivered.
According to the Dubai Police, there were 126 accidents involving motorbikes last year, with 10 people killed and 22 seriously injured.
Studies from the United States’ National Highway Traffic Safety Administration show that a motorcyclist’s risk of having a fatal crash is 35 times higher than that of someone in a car.
*More: Reckless drivers in the UAE could soon face jail time*
Freedom Pizza aren’t the only company to look out for the safety of their delivery drivers. Food delivery service Deliveroo have a rule in place that prevents their drivers from delivering when it’s raining or when “road surfaces are deemed unsafe”, for the safety of their staff. Sure, there might be a few customers left foodless, but safety first.
*More: Speed limits of Al Qudra and Umm Suqeim roads to go up*
Thomas Edelmann, Founder of Road Safety UAE says in the Freedom Pizza video: “We hope that other institutions will learn from this example, and hopefully we will see more of these creative initiatives in the very near future.”
So next time your delivery is a little bit late – instead of calling up all a-fluster – think of the delivery driver and how he’s probably just trying to ensure he’ll be around to make the next delivery.
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