Center for the Complete Management of Mobility in the City of Granada in English
International Day of Elderly People
On the morning of 3 October, in Plaza del Carmen, the Center of Road Safety of the City Council of Granda, Red Cross and the Official School of Psychology celebrate the Day of Elderly People.
According to estimations, world´s population over 60 years old, will increase from 900 millions in 2015 to 1.400 millions in 2.030 and 2.100 millions in 2.050, an equivalent number aproximated to the number of children under 15 years.
Facing this reality, the 1st October commemorates the International Day od Elderly People from 1990, at the request of the United States and with the slogan: Towards a society for all ages.
Over the history, elderly people have been a referent, a source of knowledge and inspiration for the rest of generations, playing an active role in society. This is the role we want for our elderly in Granada, that mean a 26% of population.
From the area of Mobility want to ease urban displacements of elderly people and make them safer: get them to their leisure places, their possibilities for social and family relationships, and also their participation in educational activities to retrain and improve their Road Safety in a changing world as this is.
These educational activities are made thanks to the cooperation of Red Cross, the Official School of Psychology and this year incorporates a unit of National Police for elderly people.
If we make a brief sketch of urban accident rate in Granada, people over 60 year old involved in urban traffic accidents, in case of pedestrians, there is a high involvement in previous years, that in 2016 has started to decrease.
Main negligences made by pedestrians in a traffic accident with victims, are preferably illegal invasions of lanes and not using pedestrian crossings.
Implication of females in accidents is higher, in contrast of what happens with drivers.
Due to our municipal policies that support Active Ageing, autonomy and complete integration and participation in society of elderly, there are some actions undertaken from different departments: Social Welfare, Mobility, Citizen Participation...
For my part as Delegate of Mobiliy and to favour this safe inclusion and active ageing of our Elderly in their city, our actions aimed to that objective are:
- We bet for a type of city with an urban space distribution where main character is the person and its living, not vehicles. We want ot make a city with a place for everyone: pedestrians, bikes, and public transport with priority.
- We are implementating an adapted public transport, affordable, low polluting and to connect the city and its Metropolitan Area.
- We provide educational activities through the Educational Center in Road Safety with Red Cross and the Official School of Psychology, where refresh and inform about the risks of elderly when walking/driving around our cities where on the other hand their role is so necessary: they are baby sitters of their grandchildren in many ocassions and they do it perfectly, pay more attention when they keep their grandchildren than alone... We do not know traffic accidents in Granada involving elderly people accompanied of their grandsons.
- We design information material delivered in the Day Centers where also we offer training activities.
- We make Workshops like this one we are making today where will work refreshing the cognitive level, playing a traffic sign domino. They will be given notebooks to inform about the deficit typical of the age with an impact on risk of accidents and ways to compensate them.
Finally thank Red Cross and the Official School of Psychologists for their cooperative work for such an important and necessary collective in Granada: our ELDERLY.
Center for the Complete Management of Mobility
Delegation of Citizens Safety and Mobility.
City of Granada
