The West of Scotland Road Safety Forum (WoSRSF) launched its ‘Don’t Let This Happen To You’ campaign in the summer, to follow its ‘Hero to Zero’ campaign in 2007.This has been notably successful, reducing the numbers of casualties among young drivers in the west of Scotland from 5 a day in 2006 to 3 a day on 2008 – although this is still very high.
Quickly capturing the imagination of its target audience – and now popularly known as the ‘Numpty’ campaign – ‘Don’t Let This Happen To You’ adopted a hard-hitting peer pressure angle.
Its aim was to persuade young drivers to think carefully about their driving behaviour and not be branded a Numpty, Dunderheid, Eejit or Tube by their friends when they get behind the wheel.
Intensive campaign activity was conducted across the region, including Argyll and Bute and involving radio and online advertising, competitions, posters and beer mats in pubs, clubs and universities, school washroom stickers and other special promotions.
Councillor Duncan MacIntyre, Argyll and Bute’s Transportation and Infrastructure spokesman and the area’s WoSRSF representative says: ‘We have received highly positive feedback from partners and young people alike in response to this imaginative initiative.
‘The Forum has even received anecdotal feedback from publicans about young people who have ‘stolen’ the campaign beer mats because of their cult following!
‘The number of young drivers killed or injured in the West of Scotland has come down steadily since the Forum launched its first campaign in 2007, and I’m confident that this latest campaign will continue to make a positive contribution to bringing those figures down even further.
‘We cannot afford to be complacent, however. The latest published figures show that young driver casualties across the West of Scotland have reduced from five a day in 2006 to three in 2008. But that’s still three a day too many.
‘We will continue to do everything we can to reduce this tragic waste of young lives across the West of Scotland’.
The young unconsciously see themselves as immortal (fond memory of times past). Their reaction times are quick but thier judgement untutored by experience. Add this to thrill of speed and the gormless showing off that their mates often hold back from cooling down and you have the recipe that still sees 3 RTA casualties a day in this age group in the west of Scotland.
Good driving is cool driving and the Don’t Let This Happen To You campaign has successfully got that message across.