The Young Approach

The project will aim to educate young people on the dangers of using mobile phones when driving. There have been numerous campaigns around this topic however this project will be differentiated by delivering digital content targeted toward young drivers and young people from 14-18 years of age.

The project will capitalise on the use of digital media by young people and focus on their preferred social media platforms Facebook, Spotify, Instagram etc. to push the message of distracted driving being ‘not cool’ and unacceptable.

The messages will also look to use social influencers and enablers to reinforce the message.

By using school Road Safety Ambassadors the message will become common in discussions around what is safe driving behaviour on our roads.

To deliver a series of targeted programs to local schools to recruit Road Safety Ambassadors to spread the message on distracted driving and recruit student volunteers to assist.

To reduce the number of young drivers caught using their mobile phones annually by 50%.
To raise awareness in the target group that distracted driving is ‘not cool’ and unacceptable.
To understand what drives this group and the type of messages that resonate with them in road safety.

Introduction

A Young Approach is a campaign by RAAG that centralises around bringing the discussion of road safety to the forefront in the minds young emerging drivers and create a culture of road safety-minded drivers in the Mackay community.

Studies have shown that young drivers, within the first six months of attaining their provisional one,(Red P1) license are three-times as likely to be involved in a crash (Austroads, 2008) and 25.4% of fatal road crashes on Australian roads involve a 17 – 24 year old driver (Department of Transport and Main Roads, 2011). These studies indicate that a lack of experience has been the major causal factor for this crashes.

For us at RAAG, we believe there is no substitute to experience, but an awareness and education in road safety can certainly be appreciated when faced with these experiences first hand.

As apart of this campaign, projects like the “Road Safety Ambassadors” program, intend to elect students within the Mackay schooling community to represent and communicate the ideals of road safety toward their student peer groups of emerging drivers. This program will be utilised to combat the growing threat of dangerous driving behaviours, such as Distracted Driving.

Distracted Driving

Distracted Driving has been a growing concern on Australian roads since the inception of mobile devices in the Australian market, however, with growing functionality and heavier reliance on smart phone devices, distracted driving is being over represented in car crash statistics with as many a one in four car crashes (CAARSQ, 2017) is largely attributed to being a result or joint-result of distracted driving.

With young people being an emerging generation of drivers on the roads, it has been reported that 18 to 25 year old drivers are four times as likely to engage in distracted driving behaviour by reading/sending text messages, 12% making Facebook updates and 14% taking a selfie (CAARS-Q, 2017).

In Scope

The “Young Approach” campaign in scope focuses on curbing young emerging drivers away from engaging such behaviours not by creating fear, but by educating these young emerging drivers to self-actualisation and awareness of the self in the driving environment.

Funding the Project:

RAAG has submitted grant applications for this project.

The Young Approach

Introduction

Distracted Driving

In Scope

Funding the Project:

Further reading: