GEM 90th anniversary celebrations continue through 2022

We're continuing a special series of initiatives and activities throughout 2022 to celebrate our 90th anniversary.

Road Safety Charity

GEM has embarked on an energetic member recruitment drive with a pledge to donate 90p to the GEM Road Safety Charity for every new member recruited. This will help fund some of the projects which have been successful in securing funding from the Charity. Recent initiatives include a collaborative project with the British Horse Society to help raise awareness of safety around horses on the road, as well as the hugely-popular Blue Light Aware resource, which helps drivers stay legal and safe when making way for an emergency vehicle.

Good Motoring

The latest edition of GEM’s quarterly members’ magazine, Good Motoring, provided the perfect opportunity to say ‘Happy 90th!’ in style, with a nostalgic scrapbook presenting a range of landmark moments from each of the past nine decades. There’s even an opportunity to ‘meet’ Vernon Durtnal and Derek Hainge, both former editors of the magazine.

As usual, there’s an opportunity for one lucky reader to win a two-night break in a beautiful hotel, while members of the road test team weigh up the relative benefits and drawbacks of a hybrid, plug-in hybrid and fully electric vehicle.

Project EDWARD (Every Day Without A Road Death)

GEM was the first organisation to support Project EDWARD when it launched in 2016. The initiative has grown every year since then and is now a firmly-established part of the road safety calendar. The theme for the 2022 Week of was ‘Changing Minds, Changing Behaviour’ and GEM played a full part in helping to raise awareness among its members and the wider community.

Webinar: What is safe driving and why should I care?

In September, GEM presented a 60-minute webinar on the subject of safer driving for older people. The event formed part of GEM’s commitment to Project EDWARD and included a carefully chosen selection of presentations from road safety experts including Professor Charles Musselwhite from Aberystwyth University, Rob Heard from the Older Drivers’ Forum and June Howlett of Buckinghamshire County Council. The event was moderated by Valerie Singleton OBE and can be viewed at projectedward.org/gem

Voices from the Road

An exciting new audio podcast archive, ‘Voices from the Road’, is being made ready for launch in December. The podcast is presented by Valerie Singleton OBE, who has already recorded the first series of programmes. Notable stories from the first series include:

· learning to drive in 1935 – the year of the very first driving tests

· escorting a V1 doodlebug – complete with a ton of explosives still on board – from the Kent coast to Knightsbridge Barracks in 1944

· the background to the very first speed awareness courses in 1991

· the thinking behind one of the most successful road safety social media initiatives in 2014

The Voices from the Road podcast launches on Friday 9 December, with a new episode published each week for six weeks.

GEM chief executive Neil Worth said: “Thanks to the loyal and enthusiastic support from our members, GEM continues to be an important voice for safety at a national, regional and local level.

We are pleased to be using this 90th anniversary year as an opportunity to redouble our efforts in reducing death and serious injury on the UK’s roads.”

A short history of GEM Motoring Assist

A commitment to reducing casualties and to keeping everyone safe on the road was the reason GEM came into being in 1932. Now, 90 years later, that commitment is as strong as ever.

GEM was founded in 1932 as the Company of Veteran Motorists, a club to encourage care, courtesy and concentration on the roads, against a backdrop of rising fatal and serious collisions. In that same year, a shocking 6,667 people lost their lives in road crashes.

In 1978 the organisation launched its breakdown recovery service and in 1983 changed its name to the Guild of Experienced Motorists (GEM for short). Since then, GEM has enjoyed repeated success as an award-winning provider of breakdown recovery services. In recent years, GEM has been a Which? Recommended Provider and has consistently been voted Top three in the Auto Express Driver Power Survey for more than ten years.

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GEM Motoring Assist is a members’ motoring and road safety organisation in the UK. Our aim is to keep our members on the move… whether that’s through our breakdown recovery service or our motoring and road safety expertise.

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