Athlon Belgium new partner of the New Year’s campaign Responsible Young Drivers

Road safety is part of sustainable mobility

Once again, partygoers can count on the Responsible Young Drivers (RYD) to get home safely this New Year’s Eve.Athlon Belgium makes 20 cars from its fleet available for this campaign. By doing so, the company wants to actively contribute to road safety. Increasing road safety is an important part of the company’s sustainability strategy.

Johan Chiers from Responsible Young Drivers: “We are very pleased with this new partnership with Athlon. It’s impossible for us to set up this campaign without partners. The fact that a leading player like Athlon supports us is a real boost for us.”

Erwin Ollivier, General Manager at Athlon Belgium: “Sustainable mobility of people is about more than just environmentally friendly cars. Making mobility more sustainable in the coming years is not only about the advance of electric vehicles, but also about people’s automatisms. We want to make drivers more aware of their driving behaviour and help reduce road accidents.”

Annual campaign

During the 28th edition of the New Year’s campaign, volunteers once again drive people who have had too much to drink home as an emergency solution. The volunteers operate in teams of two, so that one of them can drive the reveller’s car and the other can follow in the Responsible Young Drivers car. A recent survey by Vias Institute shows that although more and more people are thinking in advance about how to get home safely, New Year’s Day remains a very dangerous traffic day. Nearly 1 in 3 accidents with injury involve a driver under the influence of alcohol. According to the Road Safety Institute, 2 percent of people in Flanders still drive home while they are certainly above the legal limit; this is even as high as 6 percent in Wallonia. In an effort to reduce this, the Responsible Young Drivers telephone number 0902/12345 will be operative tomorrow from midnight to 5 a.m.

Sustainability is central, including in the workplace

Athlon will continue to focus strongly on sustainable mobility in the coming year. The lease company is more interested in alternative means of transport and advocates for the drive system that best suits the number of kilometres travelled by the driver. “We want to encourage our customers to include alternative mobility solutions in their car policy,” explains Erwin Ollivier. “As a mobility provider, we can be a lever for social change.”

Sustainability is also central in the workplace: disposable plastic is used as little as possible, staff movements are kept to a minimum, and rainwater is reused. Employees can sign up for an internal programme that focuses on mental resilience, healthy nutrition, and physical exercise.

About Athlon

Athlon is one of the leading providers of vehicle leasing and fleet management in Europe. The company has some 52,500 cars on the road in Belgium and 2,300 in Luxembourg. This makes it one of the largest players on the Belgian and Luxembourg leasing market. Athlon has developed innovative, sustainable and cost-efficient mobility solutions for more than 100 years. The company enables people to move hassle-free through integrated and sustainable fleet and mobility solutions. Athlon is part of Daimler Financial Services, a full subsidiary of Daimler AG. The headquarters are located in the Netherlands.

More information on www.athlon.com