Think Road Safety
About THINK!
The UK Government has an objective of reducing road deaths and serious injuries by 40 per cent (50 per cent for children) by the year 2010 (using the average for 1994-98 as the baseline). Key factors in achieving that objective are improved road user behaviour and acceptance of engineering and enforcement initiatives that increase road safety. Education and publicity play a key role in raising consumer awareness and acceptance.
Our road safety publicity aims to:
- ensure that there is a high profile for road safety as a matter for general concern
- complement police and local authority activities
- encourage broader support from private sector partners
- get across specific messages to target audiences
- generate media interest in road safety issues
It does this by:
- involving a broad spectrum of society in promoting safer roads for everyone
- encouraging and reinforcing attitudes that lead to safer and more considerate behaviour by all road users
- promoting understanding of the need for better road safety behaviour
- contributing to the general aim of reducing road casualties and meeting the casualty targets for year 2010
Our basic approach is national publicity using a mix of emotion and facts that raise the profile of road safety. We utilise a range of media channels - TV, radio, press, posters, ambient etc. - to provide a national platform to stimulate complementary regional and local authority activity and to encourage private sector companies to cascade messages to their employees and customers. A range of free publicity material is made available to local authorities and others to promote consistency of messages at national and local level. We have also entered into sports sponsorship with the Rugby Football League and the English Football League to enable us to get our messages across to a wider audience using a celebrity based approach.
Road Safety advertising has been a key priority for many years. In the past, advertising focussed on specific themes such as drink drive and Seat belts. In recent years we have communicated many more messages - such as fatigue and use of mobile phones. We wanted people to see that these extra individual messages were part of an overall campaign to improve road safety. So in June 2000, we launched a new campaign under one banner - THINK! - to unite our various road safety messages.
The rationale for THINK!
The aim of Government road safety campaigns is to reinforce the need for drivers and other road users to take responsibility for their own safety and for the safety of others on the road. In the wider context, the theme of personal and social responsibility is central to the Government's philosophy and to its transport policies to encourage more responsible travel choices.
The encouragement of more people to walk or cycle instead of driving makes the promotion of safety for more vulnerable road users and the responsible and considerate behaviour of drivers even more important.
Road safety publicity campaigns raise public awareness that accidents do not just happen, rather they are caused. Public awareness campaigns can help to influence the attitudes and behaviours that cause accidents. They also create public acceptance for safety engineering and police enforcement and they give national focus and context for local initiatives aimed at making the roads safer and for third parties to carry road safety messages in the context of their own commercial activities.
The THINK! campaign was therefore launched:
- To contribute to achieving the targets for road casualty reduction by year 2010, as set out in the Government's policy strategy document " Tomorrow's roads: safer for everyone ".
- To use all the marketing tools available to us to get across road safety messages effectively and meaningfully.
- To draw together a wide range of road safety messages under a single concept.
- To get across specific advice to road users while impressing on all the need to THINK! while using the road.
- To help to stimulate a year round presence under a new road safety brand.
- To encourage new partnerships to associate with the brand in promoting road safety.
The THINK! campaign is not about the motorist as such, or the pedestrians, or cyclists, motor cyclists, etc. It is about people, about the citizen, about each and all of us. It is about how we all use our roads safely, whether we happen to be motoring, walking, cycling or whatever. This is mainly to build a mood of "we're all in it together" to have greater effect.
The expression, "show me the child at seven and I'll show you the adult" neatly encapsulates our approach. We target people from childhood to adulthood, aiming to instil good practice at a very early age with frequent reminders for teenagers and adults.
For 2008/9, we have developed separate child and adult marketing strategies - although both will continue under the THINK! banner. The reason for separation is that in the case of children and young people we are trying to influence the formation of habits, whereas with adults we are trying to persuade people, mainly drivers, to change sometimes entrenched habits.
Website: http://www.dft.gov.uk/think/
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