Ref: KCC201312 Date: 2ndJanuary 2014
Zest's ‘Speak UP' Kent Road Safety Campaign wins International Award
Kent County Council has won a Prince Michael International Road Safety Award for ‘Speak Up' created by Zest ST for the 2012/13 campaign to encourage teenagers travelling with young drivers to gain a voice to discourage irresponsible driving.
This campaign continues the creative work that Kent County Council's Road Safety Team and Zest ST have produced over the past decade, which has helped to significantly reduce the number of killed and serious injury crashes on Kent's roads over this period.
Speak Up, is an important campaign as in the last three years 210 young people aged 16 - 24 were killed or seriously injured on Kent's roads, which makes up 30% of the total number of all car occupant casualties. The campaign uses a highly impactful visual, illustrating a young passenger without a mouth in a crash scenario. It tackles the difficult situation where young people staying silent can result in crashes. As much research demonstrates a young audience does not readily accept advice from perceived authority figures, and so this campaign strives to place the responsibility on the young themselves. Passengers do influence drivers' actions and can therefore reduce crashes.
David Brazier, Kent County Council Cabinet Member for Transport and Environment, said:
"This award is a tremendous and well-deserved achievement. It recognises the hard work involved in developing campaigns that hit home to help reduce crashes and the number of lives damaged or cut short."
Steve Horton from KCC Road Safety said "I am so proud to be associated with such an impactful campaign that uses a strong graphic to illustrate the risk young passengers can face on the road. The campaign encourages young people to take control of the risk they may face and in doing so challenges their self-esteem. To speak out against a peer is tough, but to remain silent could lead to a lifetime of regret."
Presenting the award, RoadSafe chairman Tony Spalding said:
"Giving young passengers the courage to criticise bad driving is very important and the Kent team does this n an effective and novel way."
Speak Up kicked off with a website and a 3-minute film ‘Speak Up', which was specially commissioned to illustrate some of the issues faced by passengers. The campaign also used bus-back adverts, posters in pub and club washrooms, social networking and radio adverts and supported through a public relations launch.
Evaluation of the 2011 campaign shows 68% of the young people the Kent Road Safety Team spoke to said they remembered the campaign, and of those, 79% said they had ‘spoken up' because of it.
For more information on road safety campaigns in Kent, please visit www.kentroadsafety.info
Editor Contact:
Simon Merrick - Tel: 01634 671167