Story #19: George
professor George Yannis, Athens (featured in Paris)
George is a well-known and respected road safety expert. But he is also a long-lasting marathon runner. From Athens, he leads the NTUA Road Safety Observatory, a Center of Research and Innovation Excellence on Road Safety, with global recognition for its highly valuable contribution to the improvement of road safety in Greece, in Europe and worldwide.
George started running systematically long distances at the age of 16 and during his life he completed more than 40 marathons. Running is part of his life: his students know that they can join him in the campus for run after classes.
He decided to combine these two passions and launched a personal campaign to deliver road safety messages during marathons.
“After more than 30 years of dedication to road safety science and several marathon races, I decided to combine both passions for a cause: to run 30 Marathons in 30 months to actively promote the adoption of 30 kmh speed limit in as many cities as possible worldwide”
George, a few days before Paris Marathon 2023
Speed management is as a fundamental policy for safer, healthier and greener cities for all. Not only does speeding make a crash more likely to happen, it also increases the likelihood of severe injuries .
Experts ofter remind us that both excessive speed (driving above the speed limit) and inappropriate speed (driving too fast for the conditions, but within the limits) are important crash causation factors
“Speeding is the number one cause of road crashes worldwide and I count on your support to promote actively 30 km/h cities and save 50% of lives lost today.”
It is about physics. When speed increases, the risk of a crash and of its severity increases as well: the time to react is shorter and the manoeuvrability of a speeding car is smaller. in other words, the faster the car is the longer it takes to stop in case of an emergency (e.g. a kid following a rolling ball on the street; a family crossing the street hidden by an obstacle; etc.)
George decided to bring this message to the marathons in Europe and beyond. His t-shirt might look strange in an environment of runners (“speed limit 30 km/h”) but actually intrigues participants and offer opportunities to engage in conversation within the group of participants to the marathon.
He ran already in Rome, Malta, Valencia, Athens, London, Antwerp, Helsinki, Zagori. Paris was the 9th of his challenge
“During 30 months I will focus on scientific planning and preparation, systematic effort and continuous monitoring and dedication in order to complete the 30 Marathons. Exactly the skills that are needed by any City to change and achieve steady progress towards sustainable city mobility”
It wasn’t easy to cross George at the marathon in Paris with so many participants. But we have agreed on a specific area by the Seine and, luckily, I could identify his shirt and the round road traffic panel with the 30 number on it.
That was, more or lest, Km 27 …. some more to complete in a good timing of 3h and 52 minutes.
George at the Paris Marathon, 2 April 2023 - Km 27 and 500 m
George showed me that when you combine your work with your personal passions, your can set ambitious target, find new motivation, involved the people around you. You can check the reactions on his LindeIn page, when he first announced the challenge, a few weeks ago.
Good luck in your journey George. Keep on delivering safety messages to ordinary people, those who run next you and all spectators around the world watching the races. In Paris there were 50,000 runners.
If you want to follow George check our his website - If you want to learn more about his research work, follow this link
George Yannis, 1 April 2023, Place de la Concorde - Paris
