Help.... Road Safety Campaign Concepts

[Wigsie]

Another shamefull wigsie research thread!

Basically this is some initial concepts for imagery (final versions will be photographs) for some posters as part of a pedestrian awareness campaign for 11-16 year olds (cycle safety campaign starting soon ).

The campaign will be supported with various other media competitions, roadshows etc across Kent, but we need to decide on a concept for the imagery. If any of you with 11-16 year olds can you show them the imagery below and ask which one they believe would make the most hard hitting or poigniant photograph then let me know that would be awesome!!!

Thanks once again!

 

[Wigsie]

And Last but not least....

 

[montage]

the last one "lisa aged 9" etc, wont personalise anybody unless they are called lisa ....although it's good, people will instinctively think of lisa, not as themselves

forget road safety and risk missing out....why it a school desk you are missing out on? ..... that is such a good slogan but every 11-16yr old will want to miss out on school

The Dummy ones are excellent, as is the one with just headphones...

Wasn't that long ago I was that age ... it's all about making it seem related to them - I really really like the dummy ones and the headphones one

 

[Wigsie]

Cheers Pete,

Anyone else want to help or is it because it's for peds?

 

[thomas]

I like the first three and last two....the dummy walking into the road probably being my fav.

I found the 'missing out' ones didn't really do anything for me because there wasn't a road or anything.

 

[theclaud]

Shouldn't this be in "Campaigning"?

As far as poster concepts go, they are quite strong, but I have to object to the whole premise of the campaign if these ideas are representative of it. One would think that children and young people were killed not by drivers of cars, but by listening to iPods or being eager to get to football training. It's worth quoting at some from David Horton's Fear of Cycling to illustrate what I mean:

With accelerating automobility, the tension between the street as a space for communal sociality and as a space for cars had, by the 1930s, become acute. The unruly social worlds of the street and the car’s increasingly voracious appetite for space could not peaceably co-exist, and one or the other needed to be tamed. Motoring organisations such as the AA and the RAC argued that children should be taught to keep out of the car’s way, and road safety education was born, as an alternative to preserving streets for people. [...]

The transformation of streets for people into roads for cars, perhaps inevitably, produced death and injury. [...] Yet road safety education concentrates not on the drivers of vehicles, but on those who they have the capacity to kill. [...]

The dominant assumptions on which UK road safety was originally based have remained in place. Today, rather than producing strategies to tame the sources of danger on the road, road safety education tries instead to instil in ‘the vulnerable’, primarily school children, a fear of motorised traffic, and then to teach them tactics to escape from road dangers as best they can.

 

[summerdays]

Well I figured that since my two that fit that category are snow skivving that they could look at them ... Their responses are as follows:
Stepping out in road - no real response
Crash test dummy ones - disgusting
Face torn off - Thats horrible
Ipod one - cool
Football shirt and desk - their girls so not really any response
Broken earphones - cool
Car windscreen ones - have impact (her words not mine!!!)

 

[Wigsie]

Shouldn't this be in "Campaigning"?

As far as poster concepts go, they are quite strong, but I have to object to the whole premise of the campaign if these ideas are representative of it. One would think that children and young people were killed not by drivers of cars, but by listening to iPods or being eager to get to football training. It's worth quoting at some from David Horton's Fear of Cycling to illustrate what I mean:

With accelerating automobility, the tension between the street as a space for communal sociality and as a space for cars had, by the 1930s, become acute. The unruly social worlds of the street and the car’s increasingly voracious appetite for space could not peaceably co-exist, and one or the other needed to be tamed. Motoring organisations such as the AA and the RAC argued that children should be taught to keep out of the car’s way, and road safety education was born, as an alternative to preserving streets for people. [...]

The transformation of streets for people into roads for cars, perhaps inevitably, produced death and injury. [...] Yet road safety education concentrates not on the drivers of vehicles, but on those who they have the capacity to kill. [...]

The dominant assumptions on which UK road safety was originally based have remained in place. Today, rather than producing strategies to tame the sources of danger on the road, road safety education tries instead to instil in ‘the vulnerable’, primarily school children, a fear of motorised traffic, and then to teach them tactics to escape from road dangers as best they can.

Thanks for your comments Claud, I don't think it should be in campaigning as I am asking for opinions on creatives not support for a campaign.

I understand where you are coming from, we work alongside a number of road safety groups all year round with different campaigns focusing on different groups od road users (christmas/summer drink driving, young drivers, drug drivers, myth busting, cycle awareness etc etc).

This particular campaign is targetting 11-16 year old pedestrians and the fact is, indirectly they are killed by their ipods, mobiles and other distractions like rushing to football! Not every pedestrian KSI is the fault of the driver is it? Increasingly incidents are involving things like phones and ipods as factors that lead up to the collission, so trying to make them more aware of the dangers, how much these things can distract you and how important it is to focus when your on/around the roads is incredibly important is it not?

 

[Wigsie]

Well I figured that since my two that fit that category are snow skivving that they could look at them ... Their responses are as follows:
Stepping out in road - no real response
Crash test dummy ones - disgusting
Face torn off - Thats horrible
Ipod one - cool
Football shirt and desk - their girls so not really any response
Broken earphones - cool
Car windscreen ones - have impact (her words not mine!!!)

Cheers Summerdays

 

[theclaud]

I appreciate that the campaign is well-intentioned, and is only part of the picture, but I remain convinced that the drift of it is not only wrong in principle because of where it allocates responsibility, but counter-productive in the long term. I think pedestrians fare best when behaving assertively in their dealings with vehicles. It is, of course, not worth getting maimed to prove a point in any particular circumstance, but the more circumspect pedestrians become around cars, the less drivers will have to watch out for them, and the more liberties those drivers will be encouraged to take. The last thing we need is pedestrians being so well disciplined that they never get in the way of cars.

 

[Wigsie]

I appreciate that the campaign is well-intentioned, and is only part of the picture, but I remain convinced that the drift of it is not only wrong in principle because of where it allocates responsibility, but counter-productive in the long term. I think pedestrians fare best when behaving assertively in their dealings with vehicles. It is, of course, not worth getting maimed to prove a point in any particular circumstance, but the more circumspect pedestrians become around cars, the less drivers will have to watch out for them, and the more liberties those drivers will be encouraged to take. The last thing we need is pedestrians being so well disciplined that they never get in the way of cars.

All I can say is thank FU*K your not a road safety officer where my kids live!

 

[theclaud]

All I can say is thank FU*K your not a road safety officer where my kids live!

And I'm quite pleased you're not in charge of transport policy! But these things matter, because if responsibility is not placed where it belongs - on the shoulders of those operating potentially lethal vehicles - then children will continue to be maimed and killed with impunity, and then blamed for it. As a schoolchild I endured endless lectures and videos from RoSPA and suchlike - they train us from an early age to keep out of the way of cars, and the sooner we can unlearn this sorry lesson, the better.

 

[Wigsie]

And I'm quite pleased you're not in charge of transport policy! But these things matter, because if responsibility is not placed where it belongs - on the shoulders of those operating potentially lethal vehicles - then children will continue to be maimed and killed with impunity, and then blamed for it. As a schoolchild I endured endless lectures and videos from RoSPA and suchlike - they train us from an early age to keep out of the way of cars, and the sooner we can unlearn this sorry lesson, the better.

Please don't turn this into a P&L battle, I asked for feedback and you have had your say (Thank you ) carrying on now may deter some people from commenting and providing potentially helpfull feedback.

 

[swee'pea99]

Two thoughts: one, it needs to be *instant*. Kids have a very short attention span. Two, death is a poor motivator for kids because they know they are immortal.

Having said that, my preferred option (assuming that the basic 'takeout' you want is 'don't get lost in your music') would be a much tighter-cropped version of the pic in jpg2 - get really close on the dummy's ear, with blood coming out of it (an arresting image in itself - dummies don't bleed), sharing 'visual space' 50/50 with an ipod earpiece that's fallen out.

I think the line - Don't be a dummy - is a very good one. Like I say, every kid knows (s)he will live for ever...but none wants to be thought of as a dummy. If death is a poor motivator for a kid, image-related peer pressure is about as good as it gets.

 

[Wigsie]

Thanks Swee'pea, image related peer pressure is kind of what we were aiming for.