BOSTON, May 12, 2022 – Safe Roads Alliance and Cambridge Mobile Telematics (CMT), the world’s largest telematics service provider, announced the start of the first annual Global Road Safety Week Relay this Sunday, May 15, in Lenox, Massachusetts. The cross-state relay is designed to raise awareness for traffic safety and encourage the public, local businesses, advocates, state agencies, and distraction survivors to join the movement for safer roads. Proceeds from the event will help fund programs like Kids Speaking Up for Road Safety and the America Walks Community Change Grants Program. CMT is the title sponsor of the event.

The relay comes at a precarious time for road safety in Massachusetts. 400 people were killed on Massachusetts roads in 2021, more than any year since 2007. CMT research shows that distracted driving — when drivers actively use their phone while driving — reached its highest point of the pandemic in February 2022, when drivers across the nation were distracted for 1 minute and 38 seconds of every hour on the road. 

“Our goals with the Joining Forces for Safer Roads Relay are to increase traffic safety awareness and to raise funds for more traffic-calming measures in Massachusetts,” said Jillian Kaplan, with Safe Roads Alliance. “The numbers speak for themselves. Drivers have become more unsafe throughout the pandemic. CMT’s new report shows how bad distracted driving has become despite the new hands-free bill making handling your phone while driving illegal in Massachusetts. We hope this relay will highlight the need for Massachusetts to come together and make a commitment to build safer roads and safer driving habits. Together, we can make our roads safer for everyone.”

The Joining Forces for Safer Roads cross-state challenge starts in Lenox this Sunday and ends a week later in Boston. The 171-mile route is divided into three-to-six-mile legs, where participants can walk, run, bike, or roll their leg of the challenge at their own pace. People can participate in as many of the legs of the relay as they’d like. With the exception of the first and last leg, participants can complete any leg at any point during the relay. Participants can form teams to run, walk, or bike together. 

“Distracted driving has surged in the past few months, reaching its highest point of the pandemic in February 2022, when drivers were distracted for 1 minute and 38 seconds of every hour on the road. This was a 30% increase over February 2020, the last month before the pandemic began,” said Matt Fiorentino, Senior Director of Marketing at CMT. “The Joining Forces for Safer Roads Relay is an important effort to bring together Massachusetts communities to make our roads and drivers safer. It could not come at a better time to combat distraction. We’re proud to be the title sponsor.”

Registration for the relay is open now. Anyone interested in participating and helping build safer roads for Massachusetts can register here.

About Safe Roads Alliance

Safe Roads Alliance was formed in 2006 as a not-for-profit organization dedicated to saving lives through better driving. Safe Roads provides educational services to all drivers on different aspects of driving safety, including: Distracted Driving, issues confronting teen drivers, and sharing the road with vulnerable road users. To register for the Road Safety Relay, click here. 

About Cambridge Mobile Telematics

Cambridge Mobile Telematics (CMT) is the world’s largest telematics service provider. Its mission is to make the world’s roads and drivers safer. The company’s AI-driven platform, DriveWell®, gathers sensor data from millions of IoT devices — including smartphones, proprietary Tags, connected vehicles, dashcams, and third-party devices — and fuses them with contextual data to create a unified view of vehicle and driver behavior. Companies from personal and commercial auto insurance, automotive, rideshare, smart cities, wireless, financial services, and family safety industries use insights from CMT’s platform to power their risk assessment, safety, claims, and driver improvement programs. Headquartered in Cambridge, MA, with offices in Budapest, Chennai, Seattle, and Tokyo, CMT serves millions of people through 80 programs in 18 countries, including 21 of the top 25 US auto insurers.