Society’s obsession with getting likes on social media is being used in a humorous way to deliver a serious message as part of this year’s Co-Lab Youth Road Safety Challenge.
Now in its third year, Co-Lab is a Palaszczuk Government initiative that brings young people together to create ads targeted at other young people, with the aim of reducing the road toll.
Transport and Main Roads Minister Mark Bailey said this year’s theme, announced today during a visit to Wellers Hill State School, was “Let’s Drive the Road Toll Down to Zero”.
“The ads feature a woman taking a selfie with her dog and a man exercising on steps – situations where normally, a high number of likes or steps would be seen as good,” Mr Bailey said.
“However, we see the characters celebrating zero steps and likes, just as we as a community should be aiming towards zero deaths and injuries on our roads.”
Mr Bailey said previous Co-Lab campaigns were overwhelmingly successful, and he expected this year’s ads, launched during Queensland Road Safety Week, would reach even more people.
“Over the last two years Co-Lab has come up with Settle down stallion’ and ‘Chin up, phone down’ campaigns which together have reached more than 8.5 million people,” he said.
“The results from Co-Lab have been fantastic, demonstrating how ideas created by young drivers can help increase awareness on road safety issues.
“Road trauma has a devastating effect on families, friends and communities and we need to work together to help change community attitudes towards the road toll.
“The participants and the Government have really enjoyed the Co-Lab process and I think this campaign will resonate with young people and the wider community.”
Minister Grace welcomed the new campaign, which she said would help increase road safety and reduce the road toll on Queensland’s roads.
“We know that young and inexperienced drivers are especially vulnerable on our roads,” Ms Grace said.
“Anything we can do to increase road safety awareness and protect young drivers is a great initiative.”
The campaign runs online and on social media from August 29 until October 7.
Mr Bailey said the success of the campaigns showed how well using humour worked to get people talking about road safety.
‘‘Part of this is starting a discussion around why the community continues to accept death and serious injury as part and parcel of using our roads,” he said.
“More than 6500 people are hospitalised each year as a result of road trauma and 247 lives were lost last year alone.
“By working together, through initiatives such as Co-Lab, I’m hopeful that one day we can achieve our goal of zero death and injury on our roads.”
Research commissioned by TMR showed:
87 per cent of road users agreed death was an inevitable part of using the roads
89 per cent agreed we should not accept people have to die on our roads
87 per cent were angry about it.
Mr Bailey said ‘Let’s Drive the Road Toll Down to Zero’ campaign used humour to increase awareness of the Queensland Government’s goal.
To watch the videos visit: Road to zero – Steps & Likes (30 sec) - https://youtu.be/zC282rG7L-Y
Road to zero – Likes (15 sec) - https://youtu.be/ZIRK8VIblKY
Road to zero – Steps (15 sec) https://youtu.be/9i4gwg2n1ys
Background
The CO-LAB Youth Innovation Challenge was one of several initiatives announced following the Safer Roads, Safer Queensland forum held in April 2015.
The Co-Lab ‘Let’s Drive the Road Toll Down to Zero’ team comprises of:
Babak Khosravi, Mikaela Lawlor, Wei Lin, Xanthe Johnston, Xin Zhang
The Queensland road toll for 2017 was 247 fatalities, which is four fatalities (or 1.6 per cent) fewer than the previous year (2016) of 251 fatalities and seven fatalities (or 2.6 per cent) less than the previous five year average.
In the last five years, young adult drivers/riders accounted for 22 per cent of all drivers/riders involved in serious crashes (where age is known) but only make up 14 per cent of licence holders*.
* As at 31 December 2017
Reportable data status
TMR is able to provide full characteristics and details (including contributing factors) of Queensland crash data for:
Fatal crashes to 28 February 2018
Non-fatal casualty crashes to 28 February 2018