Kill your speed not your valentine
LARSOA is urging young men to think about the safety of their female passengers in the run up to St Valentine's Day and kill their speed not their girlfriend.
More young women are killed as passengers in cars than as drivers. In 2005, Government statistics show 276 young women aged between 17 and 19 were killed or seriously injured while driving - but 373 suffered the same fate as passengers. This compares to a total of 869 male drivers of the same age, killed and 602 passengers.
Young male drivers are the most likely to have accidents as a result of inexperience and attitude. Studies show those aged 17 to 25 find it almost impossible to imagine their own death and have a, "it'll never happen to me" attitude towards road accidents.
David Frost, a spokesman for the Local Authority Road Safety Officers' Association (LARSOA), says: "We are constantly appealing to young male drivers to slow down. They may find it difficult to imagine their own death but they do understand the horror and guilt they would suffer if they killed or seriously injured a loved one through their own irresponsible and dangerous driving."
David adds: "We must continue to drive home the message to young men that they are not infallible and speed is a killer. Inexperience combined with excessive speed for the conditions can all too easily lead to tragedy.
"We want people to make arrangements to celebrate on St Valentine's Day, not to be making funeral arrangements."
As part of the For My Girlfriend campaign throughout the UK, 26 road safety teams and safety camera partnerships across the UK - and one in Ireland - will be running awareness campaigns and events.
They will be using a Valentine card which looks authentic but inside is the image of a crashed car and the words, "I'm sorry - I didn't mean to kill you. I was driving too fast." There is also a poster, developed with the help of sixth form students, that has the heading Speed Dating and has a graphic depiction of a car crash.
Examples of what council road safety teams will be doing include:
Bournemouth - the card will be distributed to local pubs and colleges.
Cambridgeshire - the card and poster will be sent to educational establishments and backed by a radio advertising campaign on Q103 and washroom poster advertising in pubs and clubs.
Essex - a campaign launch will take place on Friday 9 th February at Harlow College where 255 red flowers will be laid outside representing the number of young drivers or passengers killed or seriously injured on Essex Roads in 2006.
Hertfordshire - the road safety team is working in partnership with the Fire Service and North Herts College to stage a crash reconstruction in Letchworth town centre on the evening of Friday 16 th February.
Milton Keynes - the card will be distributed to local pubs and colleges, and the poster will be displayed in male washrooms in pubs.
Peterborough - a dramatisation of a speed dating event with a twist will be staged in the car park of Peterborough Regional College on Friday 9 th February at 11am.
South Gloucestershire - the road safety team is working in partnership with Avon Fire and Rescue Service to take the FMG crash rescue extrication recreation which features a young female crash victim being cut out of a wreck and put in a body bag, to five secondary schools in the county.
Thurrock - a crash reconstruction scene featuring a casualty being cut out of a wrecked car will be organised by the road safety team at Palmers College on Friday 9 th February.
The full list of road safety teams and camera partnerships taking part in the 2007 FMG campaign are Bath & North East Somerset, Bournemouth, Bracknell Forest, Bristol, Buckinghamshire, Calderdale, Cambridgeshire, Cornwall, Essex, Hampshire & Isle of White Safety Camera Partnership, Hertfordshire, Luton, Mayo County Council (Ireland), Milton Keynes, North Somerset, Oxfordshire, Peterborough, South Gloucestershire, Slough, Southend-on-Sea, Sussex Safety Camera Partnership, Thurrock, West Berkshire, Windsor & Maidenhead, the London Borough of Westminster, and Wokingham.
