“The Road’s No Playground” Pulls In More Heavyweight Support

Pacific sporting and entertainment personalities have joined forces for a Land Transport Safety Authority campaign aimed at reducing the high pedestrian injury rate among Pacific children.

The campaign is being launched today at Wesley School in Mt Roskill, Auckland by Transport Minister Mark Gosche and includes radio and billboard advertisements featuring All Black Tana Umaga, Silver Fern Bernice Mene and entertainers Che Fu and Mar-v-elle.

The aim of the campaign is to raise awareness among parents and caregivers of Pacific children that the road is not a place for children to be playing. Pacific children are seven times more likely to be injured as pedestrians than other children. The risk is particularly high in Auckland.

The ‘role model’ approach used with the recent “Let’s Get it On” safety belt advertising campaign which featured David Tua, King Kapisi and Beatrice Faumina is again being used.

The Minister said he was delighted that well known faces within the Pacific community were so supportive of the road safety campaign.

As part of the launch, children from Wesley School created 80 life-size cut-outs of children, representing the number of Pacific children under 10 who go to hospital each year because they were injured on the road – either as pedestrians or as passengers in cars.

Research carried out among the Pacific community showed that playing on a quiet road was seen as acceptable.

A high pedestrian casualty rate in any community also indicates drivers may be travelling too fast for the conditions. Speeding drivers are likely to be local as statistics show the majority of drivers involved in crashes live not far from the crash site.

Bus stop billboards featuring road safety messages from Bernice Mene and Tana Umaga, Che Fu and Mar-v-elle will be appearing from December 31 while radio advertisements go to air this week.
“As with any of these campaigns, advertising will be supported by existing education initiatives including road safety programmes and Police enforcement of urban speeding,’’ Mr Gosche said.

“We are just thrilled that so many of our Pacific role models are keen to get involved to support road safety and to encourage parents, caregivers and the children to take these issues more seriously.”

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