The Road Safety Journey WA, to be launched in the spring of this year, is a project that is all about promoting road safety awareness messages to rural communities across WA.
These messages will be delivered with a friendly approach, providing alternatives to the bad choices that are sometimes made in regards to our responsibilities towards other road users, which reflects the state of our minds on how we handle our everyday life issues.
Taking part in community events across the state, the Road Safety Journey WA will provide education and promote conversations on being safe drivers, with a particular focus on the dangers of driving on rural roads.
I am a passionate road safety advocate working on community projects in Perth for the past 10 years, and I have decided to embark on a campaign to promote road safety in the state, with a strong focus on rural areas of WA. With this in mind, I plan to travel to a number of communities and engage in conversations to promote more awareness of the importance of safe driving.
The time is right for this road safety community awareness journey. Traditional media has spent years of delivering road safety messages in Perth with the intention of shaking up ideas and shocking youth and adults' minds to the realities of the deaths on WA roads.
I wanted to create the right environment to move forward with a parallel positive project, the Road Safety Journey WA. Its objective is to promote road safety awareness message with a friendly approach, providing alternatives to the bad choices we make in regards to our responsibilities towards other road users, which reflects the state of our minds on how we handle our everyday life issues.
The Road Safety Journey WA will start in the spring of 2015 and will include visits to a number of regional towns and centres, and I will be commencing the journey in Kalgoorlie.
The goals of the Road Safety Journey WA are:
1. To promote road safety and connected communities in rural communities in WA
2. To engage in conversations with various stakeholders (community leaders, newspapers, schoolchildren, etc.) on the topic of road safety and what it means to them.
3. To help raise awareness of the importance on how we manage our driving. This can help us be a lifesaver while on every day trips around the city or suburbs, and especially on long road trips and during peak holiday periods.
Community events in rural towns in WA
We are prepared for promoting road safety awareness at any community event: with banners, flyers with positive messages, and road safety vests for school kids, making them more visible for drivers when they are walking or riding a bike.
We will also have first aid kits for cars to give away, as well as road safety kits for emergency break-downs. The kits contain: vests, a pair of gloves and a magnetic reflector to stick to the side of your car to warn other drivers.
Bumper stickers donated from road safety government agencies will be on hand to give away, as well as flyers from these agencies. We can be the source for delivering flyers and bumper stickers because it has been proven they work very well in connecting people in many different ways. They work perfectly in this situation because they are designed with innovative messages for promoting road safety and awareness, and the kids and adults like them.
Road Safety Journey WA - Messages
The dangers of driving on country roads
The time is right for change.
The only way to change our level of the consciousness towards road safety is through creating awareness by delivering positive messages during as many community events as possible, especially in the regional areas where the government messages might not get through to every member of the community. Statistics indicate that country roads are more dangerous because of many factors, where a dangerous situation can arise in a split second on often-narrow and gravel roads.
Farms
I am prepared to collaborate with farmers for a short period and help out on their farms and work, not just for supporting myself, but also to promote road safety to them, the rural communities, by helping them to realise the WA government is serious about reducing the carnage on our roads.
Gravel Roads
One of the biggest challenges facing road safety government agencies is trying to communicate the extent of the dangers of driving on country roads. City drivers and overseas drivers face many challenges when driving in regional areas as they are unfamiliar with the road conditions. It is impossible for the government to make every single driver aware of the challenges they are facing when driving on country roads, therefore our campaign, although small, can still help a significant percentage of the rural population to become more road safety aware.
Responsibilities
The aim of this responsibility philosophy is to give you the tools for you to be responsible and choose the right action in road-use situations, even where you have not created it, but to become more responsible for yourself and be free from being attached to drink driving and others' bad attitudes towards road users.
As a result of embracing this philosophy, we will be more free to participate in creating more awareness of our own behaviours towards other road users, by using curiosity to seek and search and share in becoming a safe, dynamic and inspired driver.
Remember
More Knowledge,
More Responsibility.
Road Safety Journey Philosophy
The Road Safety Journey WA is about connecting every member of the community with road safety by experiencing how we can contribute to promoting awareness in order to change our level of the consciousness towards road safety, for we realise:
- The policeman in a car or motorbike is a friend
- Paramedics teams are guardian angels
- Rescue crews are helpers
- Speed cameras, road signs, and especially the crosses on the side of the road are a reminder that road safety laws are the law which everyone is continuously bound to.
It makes no difference who you are, or if you drive, or ride a motorbike or a bicycle, even if you are a pedestrian, because we have no time to plan if we want to break the law or not, because a dangerous situation can happen very quickly! Road conditions can change in a split second.
The goal of the Road Safety Journey WA is simply to improve safety on our roads. I am not here to preach, to dictate, or to put people down, I am here to say, 'Have you considered this?' 'Did you know this?' and 'This is what happened to me, try to avoid it if you get the chance.'
I hope you will join me in spreading the word on this awareness-raising road safety campaign.
Road Safety Journey WA - Spring 2015