Lilian Romero

By using a conciliatory, comprehensive and autodidactic approach, Lilian Romero supports car accident victims nationwide by mediating among companies and victims. Now, Lilian is the leading truck drivers’ safety instructor in the country.

Lilian is empowering traffic accident victims to assume an active role in the transformation of transportation safety in Venezuela. Lilian has created a movement that strengthens victims’ families with legal and emotional support, and encourages them to join her in urging companies, government, and communities, to create safer roadways.

To facilitate corporate negotiations, Lilian offers instructional support and incentives to companies through qualification programs for their truck and car drivers. The sale of her course serves a dual purpose of financially supporting Asotránsito and opening dialogue between the company and the victim’s family. Her goal is to encourage a shift in mindset among companies to transform traffic safety in Venezuela.

The victims become powerful and credible change agents among a variety of stakeholders, as Lilian reconciles communities, groups of victims, and key government entities. Fundamentally her concept of “victim” goes beyond the traditional definition; to Lilian, everyone is a victim of unsafe driving due to the high levels of corruption in the transit police and the deteriorated state of roads. Lilian’s mediation strategy enables her to engage with companies, such as Nestle, and individuals to promote a better understanding of the issues and to move toward a safer country.

Traffic accidents cause hundreds of deaths on Venezuelan roads annually. Yet in recent years, neither the state nor civil society has come forth with ideas to respond to this dramatic situation. One reason is the general polarization between the economy and politics, leading people to neglect problems of citizen security.

The World Health Organization (WHO) considers road traffic injuries an international epidemic, given that worldwide vehicular accidents were ranked as the 9th leading cause of death in 2004, a figure that is expected to rise. Of these deaths, 90 percent occur in low- and middle-income nations, like Venezuela. Traffic problems are created not only through the increased number of vehicles on the road, but also through the attitudes and knowledge of citizens behind the wheel. For example, nine out of ten traffic accidents are caused by human error (i.e. not wearing a seatbelt) driving under the influence of alcohol, or talking on the phone.

Traffic accidents in Venezuela have a high mortality rate, exceeding 28 per 100,000 people, or 8,000 deaths a year. It is also the reason for the high mortality rate among Venezuelan children aged 5 to 14. Furthermore, estimates show that for every one person who dies, 30 more people become disabled due to injuries sustained in accidents. A high number of accidents are caused by heavy load vehicles such as trucks; as many companies’ vehicles are poorly maintained and their drivers not prepared, making accidents inevitable. The absence of state supervision puts additional responsibility on companies with massive truck transportation to educate their drivers.

Lilian has incentivized companies through recognition on Asotránsito’s website, and by providing their drivers with access to a 24/7 emotional and legal support-line hosted by Asotránsito. To date, Lilian’s organization has provided training to 1,500 drivers.

Despite all of these alarming facts, dialogues and forums to connect victims, the community and the state do not exist. Indeed, there are no programs to target the most common vehicular accidents, or to support victims. High levels of corruption among transit police and law enforcement puts Venezuelan’s at risk on the road.

After witnessing the death of a family member due to a car accident and experiencing the painful grieving process, Lilian realized there was little support for families like hers. Because of her experience, she began to offer personal support to other members of her family and to her friend’s families who suffered from a traffic-related death.

Lilian realized there was a possibility to help others, so she began to study mediation, so that she could put together a more systematic structure of support for the victims, including a webpage, legal support, and a toll-free telephone support network to provide legal and emotional support.

To reach the largest number of communities and families in Venezuela, Lilian wants Asotránsito to be present in every state, with website support tools and a database of all victims of traffic incidents. Additionally, Asotránsito advocates on victims’ behalf to form safer driving conditions.

To reach companies, Lilian has focused on fostering an open dialogue among victims, employees, and management. Her first corporate engagement began when commercial truck drivers, who were victims of their vehicle’s poor conditions, consulted Lilian about their trucks and their limited job training. She now handles many of these relationships as a mediator between the company and the victims. Additionally, Lilian offers preventive instruction courses to companies and vehicle inspections to decrease accidents.

The theoretical and practical trainings Lilian provides generally focus on defensive driving. However, each program is adapted to the company’s needs. For example, if the driver has had trouble with speed infractions, the workshop will be focused on the dangers of speeding to help the driver with counseling and working to change his/her mindset. Typically, the training courses will have about 20 participants, although one-on-one sessions are also available. To make the sessions most effective, Lilian accompanies presentations in the classroom to provide a theoretically framework for the lesson with proctored driving lessons, to provide a practical lesson that is more in touch with drivers’ daily life. Lilian has incentivized companies through recognition on Asotránsito’s website, and by providing their drivers with access to a 24/7 emotional and legal support-line hosted by Asotránsito. To date, Lilian’s organization has provided training to 1,500 drivers.

The success of the training programs (with a company fee of about $60 dollars), is an important source of income to finance Asotránsito’s activities and programs to support victims. So far, Lilian has been able to attract companies through her workshops; now, she wants to intensify her alliances with the private sector and to reinforce their business model. She plans to design and sell shirts, labels, and clothing for pets to raise funds to support a center for victims. Lilian uses all funds earned through trainings and the sale of goods to support transit victims and to mobilize people in education fairs. To measure impact, Asotránsito tracks the number of visits to her webpage and the recurrence of companies and people that have employed the legal services or emotional counseling. Lilian plans to create a database to number the accidents and their management, which will allow her to more effectively follow Asotránsito’s cases.

Lilian also plans to strengthen relationships with multilateral organizations such as the WHO, among others, to create awareness about the seriousness of traffic situations in Venezuela. Lilian’s citizen organization (CO) is the only one recognized by the WHO. By reinforcing these alliances Lilian expects to become the most reliable voice in terms of traffic safety in the country. Multilateral agencies such as the WHO could serve as a bridge to connect Asotránsito with national campaigns to prevent accidents.

In reconciling communities, victims and government, Lilian has managed to foment a dialogue with government entities, something that traffic security COs have never achieved. She seeks to develop these relationships to bring together the victims and the government as allies to solve their challenges. When the people involved in traffic accidents decide to avoid litigation, Asotránsito gives them counsel to ensure their legal protections. For those that do file suit, Asotránsito helps them to navigate the court system and avoid future legal hurdles. According to Lilian, having the victims participate in the legal process through mediation helps them to develop a familiarity with traffic laws as well as consciousness about their rights, which provides them with greater power to defend themselves. Lilian’s goal is to change society’s mindset to engender a large-scale transformation within the public transportation safety administration. Lilian is creating an active and educated civil society who understands their rights so that together they can create substantial change in the country.

Even when her organization did not have resources to give, she offered psychological help through her website.

Lilian has a fascinating life story; full of material limitations and perseverance. As a young child, she was abandoned by her mother and left to be raised by her father. She also suffered separation from her favorite sister. Lilian’s life radically changed after a car crash killed her brother-in-law in front of her house. After the accident, she moved to her sister’s house and realized no support existed to assist families suffering the loss of a loved one due to a car accident. The death of her brother-in-law and the physical and emotional distress suffered by her sister helped her find her social vocation.

Already suffering from depression for other reasons, this incident energized her to reinvent herself as someone struggling on behalf of the abandoned and marginalized, in this case the victims of traffic accidents who were all but invisible. The absence of family guides in her life has led her to experience a greater sense of empathy toward those who are left to fend for themselves. Lilian remains relentless in providing victims a space to be heard and listened to during extreme times of need. Even when her organization did not have resources to give, she offered psychological help through her website. Despite setbacks creating her organization, Lilian has been able to persevere in complex and unknown environments.