New road safety campaign

Entitled ‘Excuses’, the campaign highlights that over 95 per cent of collisions where someone is killed or seriously injured are due to human error – not the roads, not the weather, not the vehicles, not the environment. Hence the campaign clearly states that crashes are not ‘accidents’.

The advert differs from DOE Road Safety adverts in the past, which individually concentrated on one aspect of road safety, for example speeding or drink driving. This advert plays out examples across the whole gamut of road safety and the excuses that those responsible for collisions make.

Launching the new advertising campaign in the Movie House cinema on the Dublin Road, the Minister said: “For 15 years, DOE has been educating road users on many individual factors that can lead to collisions. We are all now aware of the types of behaviour that can lead to tragedy when the unexpected happens. This campaign aims is to deepen everyone’s awareness of their personal responsibility when using the road and to reinforce the need to share the road with others. We are responsible for our own actions and for the consequences. There can be no excuses.

“Significantly, this campaign challenges the notion that crashes are unavoidable and acknowledges that we can all take a proactive and preventative approach to minimize road casualties. With road fatalities continuing to remain the lowest on record since 1931, we wish to sustain this decline by reiterating the point that people create crashes; crashes are not ‘accidental’.

“A crash is not fate; it is a man-made tragedy that cannot be denied by excuses. Crashes are preventable and we are all responsible. By treating the road as a shared space, we can reduce the risks of being involved in a collision.”

Almost all road traffic collisions are caused by people, mostly drivers, behaving dangerously, carelessly or simply ignoring the law. The main causes of collisions continue to be speeding, drink driving and driver carelessness.

The reluctance of a small minority of people to wear a seatbelt or to belt in those they are responsible for still contributes to too many casualties. And pedestrians, cyclists or motorcyclists taking risks on the road too often ends in tragedy.

Mr Attwood concluded: “We already have the evidence that this is working. Road users in Northern Ireland have begun to take responsibility, we have modified our driving and riding behaviour and we are more aware as pedestrians. Lives have been saved as a result. We need to build on this to achieve the greater prize – that of zero road deaths.

Chief Superintendent Peter Farrar said: “The new advertisement clearly illustrates the reality that cars rarely cause collisions; roads rarely cause collisions; people cause collisions.

“People who drive without due care and attention. People who drive too fast. People who drive after drinking or taking drugs, and that’s no accident.

“Reducing the number of deaths and serious injuries on Northern Ireland’s roads is an achievable objective. But it can only be delivered if we all work together.

“If everyone slowed down, did not drive after taking drink or drugs, wore a seatbelt and drove with more care and attention then the number of deaths and injuries will reduce,” he said.

The “Excuses” television advert will air from 19 September 2012.