Premier Ted Baillieu today launched the Transport Accident Commission’s Christmas campaign on the steps of Parliament calling on Victorian drivers to harness their grief over recent tragic multiple fatalities by committing to safe driving.

“The past few weeks of tragedies have further highlighted the importance of making every journey a safe one, especially in the lead-up to Christmas,” Mr Baillieu said.

“With several tragic multiple fatality crashes on our minds, now is the time to talk to loved ones about the dangers of risky driving and the importance of road safety.

“Holiday periods produce high volumes of traffic on Victoria’s major highways and arterial roads, often involving a change in travel patterns and use of unfamiliar roads.

“It’s up to every road user to take responsibility for safety on our roads. I urge you to have a conversation with your family and friends about reducing their risk on the roads, so we can all have a safe holiday period,” Mr Baillieu said.

Historically, the last 12 days of the year has resulted in the highest number of road fatalities per day.

The TAC “Signs” campaign will support the boost in police activity, warning drivers there will be extra police attention on the roads in the lead-up to the holiday season.

The Premier was joined by Victoria Police Deputy Commissioner Kieran Walshe and TAC Senior Manager Road Safety and Marketing John Thompson at the launch.

Victoria Police will be running Operation Summer Stay which includes breath-testing thousands of drivers and patrols on major and minor roads across the state. Police will be backed by the TAC campaign targeting speeding and drink and drug driving and reminding drivers “Don’t Risk It”.

“Today marks the start of a busy summer for the TAC with a number of initiatives being rolled out to keep the road toll down,” Mr Thompson said.

“A new drink drive campaign is in production for launch before the peak Christmas party season.

‘Operation fire setter’ was launched today in the Dandenong Ranges and will also conduct targeted investigations into known bushfire arsonists and people of interest and will monitor areas of high risk.

Victoria Police says it is vital that the community also becomes involved.

As the slogan suggests, if you’ve seen something or know something, say something.

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A spokeswoman for the TAC which came up with the idea for the name change as part of its road safety campaigning, said five small towns called Speed in the US had been identified.

They will be approached to see if they will also change their name to SpeedKills, internationalising the anti-speeding message in the second phase of the campaign.

On Friday the town will unveil a new SpeedKills sign after reaching its goal in the form of 10,000 ‘Likes’ on its Facebook page within 24 hours of launching the “Rename Speed” campaign last month.

A television commercial that features a selection of the town’s 45 residents promoting the go-slower message directed people to the Facebook page and asked them to show their support by ‘Liking’ the campaign.

The TAC, which initially offered the Speed Lions Club $10,000 for the signage to change its name for a month if 10,000 Facebook ‘Likes’ were achieved, doubled that amount when a Melbourne radio program suggested Speed resident Phil Down should change his name to “Phil Slow Down” if 20,000 ‘Likes’ were recorded. The TAC will now give the town $20,000.

“It’s going to be really exciting to unveil the signs,” TAC spokeswoman Sarah Henderson said. “(The townspeople) were very passionate about rural road deaths and the amount of people that speed on roads around the town.”

The idea for the campaign came from TAC senior road safety and marketing manager John Thompson, who drove through the town of Speed some time ago, and the campaign was developed with communications agency Naked.

The campaign, which has primarily comprised social media promoted by the TV commercial, and public relations, has received coverage in blogs around the world and mainstream media including Melbourne radio, metropolitan, regional and interstate newspapers, and both local and national television programs, Ms Henderson said.

Naked co-founder Adam Ferrier said the campaign promoted behavioural change by asking people to take a physical action to support the anti-speeding message.

Last year Naked relaunched itself as a social change agency, arguing that traditional marketing models of building awareness and desire, leading to action, were topsy-turvy according to key tenets of behavioural psychology.

“We believe in flipping that model on its head, where we start with action first,” Mr Ferrier said at the time. “The rest – interest and desire – will look after itself.”

Naked believes “Rename Speed” is the first Australian campaign to use television advertising to point to social media in the form of a Facebook page.

Ms Henderson said it was the first campaign from the TAC to be based on social media.

“It’s been very successful and I think it’s something that we would be looking at more and more down the track, particularly for engaging younger drivers,” she said.

On Facebook, support for the town of Speed continues to zip along. This morning the SpeedKills page is showing more than 32,000 ‘Likes’.

Source: www.theaustralian.com.au

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