Michelin and Essilor, Together for Safer Mobility

Michelin and Essilor launch an awareness campaign to promote safer mobility, focused on the importance of drivers to check their eyesight and the correct condition of the vehicle’s tyres. 

Michelin and Essilor Join Forces for Road Safety 

Michelin and Essilor, a world leader in ophthalmic lenses, have launched their first joint initiative: a global awareness campaign to promote safer mobility. Under the motto, "Together for safe mobility: Check your eyesight, check your tyres", the objective of this initiative is to raise awareness about the importance of good vision and tyres in good condition. Also, for the first time, this campaign brings together the ambassadors of both brands, the Michelin doll and Max, to urge drivers to check the condition of their tyres and their eyesight. 

This awareness campaign is based on the recent update of the United Nations (UN) recommendations to improve road safety systems. Ensuring good visibility for all road users is now part of the recommendations to achieve the United Nations road safety goals globally. In this regard, Essilor and Michelin, both partners of the FIA ​​Road Safety Action and the United Nations Trust Fund for Road Safety (UNRSF), work together to ensure safer mobility. 

As for the tyres, if they are not in poor condition, the braking distance can stretch and cause an accident. The same happens if, due to a problem in our eyesight, we do not correctly perceive signals or other vehicles at a suitable distance, while driving. And in many cases, the driver is not aware that the performance of their tyres has degraded, or that their eyesight has deteriorated. 

According to the study 'Eyesight and Driving' by Essilor, 29.5% (about 8 million) of Spanish drivers do not see clearly signs or road markings and, therefore, have problems in the correct calculation of safety distances and speed of other vehicles and, consequently, reaction times are impacted. Likewise, 38% of drivers also have visibility difficulties in low light situations and 14% have difficulties even in optimal lighting conditions, which, among other things, implies difficulty in estimating distances or speed of other vehicles. 

"Poor eyesight is a risk factor in road safety. In fact, up to 5% of traffic accidents could be related to vision problems ”, explains Zoraida Marqués, an expert in eyesight health at Essilor. “For this reason, it is necessary to carry out an annual and in-depth review. This way, there can be time to correct certain visual problems and prevent the possible consequences of not detecting them.