Safety campaign uses shock images

A NEW public service broadcast on road safety uses shocking black and white footage of accidents to present a message that everyone is responsible for helping to cut accidents.

The images are accompanied by dramatic music and a voiceover, which starts: “As long as there is too much alcohol in a driver’s blood there will be blood on the roads. As long as a driver misses a bend because he didn’t want to miss a call, we will have to call ambulances. As long as a three-tonne vehicle pays no attention to a 100kg scooter, there will be tonnes of damage…”

Each incident shown results from a moment of negligence – misuse of alcohol, going too fast, using the phone, not respecting other road users etc.

The sequence ends with words that are being used as the title of the film - “As long as there are deaths, we will have to take action, for safer roads.”

The 45-second film is already being shown on television and is shortly to be played before cinema showing. It can be viewed on the internet, including on the official site at:
Road safety site

The site also includes road safety tips on topics like how to avoid telephoning in the car (turn your phone off, put it in the boot, make urgent calls before you set off…) and a space where you can leave accounts of personal experiences or make comments on threads with titles like “How can you stop a friend who has been drinking from driving?”or “In your view what are the good reasons for taking your foot off the accelerator?”.

In a statement the road safety authorities said: “Provisional figures for 2011 show 3,970 people died on the roads last year – even if we can congratulate ourselves on a tenth consecutive year of lower road deaths, it’s not a figure we can be satisfied with.”

In fact 2011’s figures differed from 2010’s by only 22 and there was a significant spike last month. France’s figures fall in the average for the EU at 62 deaths per million inhabitants in 2010. Sweden, the UK and the Netherlands do the best, at 28, 31 and 32.