2009-12-23

The Road Safety Council's website

In follow up to the commentary of praise in an earlier post on this group, I have to ask the anonymous poster how they would rate the efforts to promote the discussion on their Facebook and blog site.

Personally, I think the TV ad spots aren't too bad - the "drinking is our culture" one and their advisory on the "new youth licence" are informative and useful. However, it appears that the public pretty much zooms past them like a V50 through rush hour traffic.

Nobody so far has "gotten real" nor "joined the discussion", unfortunately. I'd suggest the following, one or some of which may have been already contemplated by the group:

[1] get the radio DJs and TV talk show heads to discuss things, stimulating some two-way conversation.
[2] forget the 30-second clips currently on the air, get the required 3 minute commercial time and air (damn the censors) the well-known clip of the British girls text-messaging in their car and then crashing. Get graphic, get the people talking.
[3] call a press conference or something similar, invite the Minister of Transport and in no uncertain terms call upon changes in the Police applying the rules of the road and in the legislation being adjusted or enhanced to take note of the seriousness of infractions.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I do apologize as I have not read your blog for awhile. However, today I did notice your earlier post on Dec 23, 2009 in which you made reference to my earlier post in Oct 09. Wow - I am pleased that I left an impression. I did read your comments to my original post - most of which I agreed with. My original post was laced with emotion and I do apologize for the lack of thought.

So I would like to respond to your question from Dec: how do I rate the efforts of the BRSC on their Facebook and blog site?

1. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would give them a rating of 6.5. The daily Tips of the Day is a great idea; however, it should be more widely distributed - they need to boost their fan base on FB to get a larger audience.
2. On the blog, the discussion topics are sound and I believe are informative and helpful to the discussion. However, like you believe it or not, I think they need to promote the blog more and get more discussion going. Additionally, it seems to take a lag of time (about a week I have checked once or twice) for a return comment - they did to do better on that front.

We differ on the tv spots though - I think the spots are great! My friends and I have discussed them both on a regular basis so I believe that there is discussion (limited possibly) about both topics in the community.

Now about your suggestions -
1. I totally agree that two wat discussions with radio DJs and talk shows would be great - I will suggest that to the RSO (Mr. Minors) as I know him.
2. I agree that doing the 3 minute commerical from Britian would be a good idea but it should be connected to something for lasting impact - will brainstorm about that one. Maybe a documentary?
3. I agree that the BPS should apply the laws/regulations in regards to roads and road safety on a regular basis, but I don't believe a press conference (more talking) is what is needed. The BRSC is constantly calling on the BPS and Government to enforce the traffic laws and they probably work along with the BPS in regards to this; however, it should be on the BPS to do their job more effectively (eventhough they are a bit overwhelmed right now with other things).
The BRSC needs to focus their energies on changing driving behaviours and the driving culture one driver at a time if necessary. A difficult task but someone has to do it.

I hope this post is a bit better than my last - - Cheers.

Tryangle said...

Thanks for the response, as always. I'm sure that I'm no great composer of thoughts and many a time I'm only speaking my mind without necessarily reading into the facts - and there's probably much about the Road Safety Council that I have little to no knowledge about.

On your points 1 and 2, which are intertwined, the message is there and it's visible, but how to stimulate discussion, that's a big challenge.

Road safety isn't a hot button topic here the way that politics or crime is, unfortunately, and Dr. Christopher Johnson made a good point in that they don't rally when people get maimed in traffic collisions. ROLO is of course, something worth mentioning, but it hasn't really permeated to the wider community.

The current TV spots aren't bad by themselves, but I think people aren't paying the attention to them that they could. The one where people are talking about "it's our culture" is fairly clever, actually, but I don't think it has that "bam" factor that gets attention after the second airing or so.

I'm glad you agree with my first suggestion, I really think it could be an effective way to get the point across to a wider audience.

On my point #3, you're right in that there already is only just talk coming forth, and like I highlighted in my opening statement, there's possibly much going on out of the spotlight where Road Safety Council members are in discussions with the Police, Ministry of Transport, etc.

To my knowledge the Police appear satisfied in their current policy of enforcing traffic laws. I disagree somewhat, but right now I admit that resources may be thin now and the budget small.

I think that it's a very difficult task to convince individual drivers to change their habits, particularly if there's no threat of getting booked by the Police and losing their driving privileges. Time after time we read about a road tragedy, we lament it for a couple of days and then if fades away. I mean, we had the Dejon Simmons story some time ago and when you see him on the street even now, you can remember the things leading up to his situation. I don't have much hope for our current crop of drivers.

There may be other ways to promote driver awareness and a safer driving culture that haven't yet been deployed - advertisements on the buses, bumper sticker giveaways, feature 10-minute regular spots on TV are ones I just came up with.