The ongoing seatbelt advertising campaign from Think! shows just what happens in a collision at 30mph if you don’t wear a seatbelt.
Here is the pre-watershed version:
Road Safety Minister Paul Clark said, “If you are involved in an accident while not wearing a seat belt then your body experiences a series of three collisions damaging vital internal organs. This campaign reminds drivers that – no matter how short their journey or how slowly they are driving – they are risking their life if they set off without putting their seat belt on.
“I hope this campaign will help everyone realise that they need to belt up every time they get in a car.”
With recent research showing that drivers are less likely to belt up on low speed, short journeys on familiar roads, the £1.3 million THINK! Campaign hopes to show that drivers are still risking their lives. Drivers are twice as likely to die in a crash if they do not wear a seat belt and if everyone belted up, one life a day could be saved.
The full advert can only be aired after 9pm due to its graphic content.
Car manufacturer Ford is introducing innovative new seatbelts that inflate like airbags to give extra protection to passengers in the event of a collision.
Ford is fitting the back seats of vehicles with belts that inflate automatically during a crash.
Ford will be fitting the new seatbelts into the new Ford Explorer 4 x 4 which goes into production in 2010. Experts say the new technology will be particularly effective at preventing broken ribs, internal damage and bruising.
Inflating over the shoulder and torso in a mere 40 milliseconds, a cylindrical airbag stretches from the buckle to the shoulder and fits inside a pocket in the belt.
In the past year, drivers in Merseyside were fined more than £1.2m for using their mobile phones while driving.
The Liverpool Daily Post reported that between April and September this year, police gave out tickets to more than 20,000 drivers for using handheld mobiles while in charge of their vehicles.
Even a driving instructor was among those hit with an £60 penalty and three points on their licence. The driving instructor was teaching a learner driver at the time!
Merseyside Police warned that the number of killed or seriously injured on the road could potentially increase unless they enforced the law. The cause of accidents while driving is not recorded, so there is no available data for how many people may have perished on UK roads because of mobile use.
COW, the graphic texting & driving public information film which we discussed on the Latics blog in August is being given its TV premiere by BBC Wales next week after becoming a global hit on the internet.
The film stars young actors from south Wales and shows a teenager killing four people in a crash when she sends a text from her mobile phone whilst driving.
Filmmaker Peter Watkins-Hughes produced it for Gwent Police as an educational tool for young drivers. It will be broadcast for the first time on BBC Two Wales on Monday 2nd November at 10pm (Sky Channel 991).
The Driving Standards Agency has amended the rules regarding the display of tax discs when a candidate takes their driving test. Previously, if the tax disc displayed in the vehicle had expired the candidate was ineligible to take their driving test.
Following a change in the law regarding the display of car tax discs, there is now a 5 day period of grace given to vehicle owners to allow them to buy their tax discs online, providing they have applied for a new disc before the old one expires.
Colin Maddock, Head of DSA Chief Executive’s Private Office confirms that “examiners have been given an instruction to take a driving test on any vehicle if the tax disc is up to five days out of date. They will not ask to see proof that a tax disc has been ordered online”.
Almost a quarter of a million young motorists are driving illegally because they do not have any insurance cover, according to a report released today by BBC’s Newsbeat.
They found that more than 20% of 17 to 20 year olds are not covered by a valid car insurance policy, which amounts to a staggering 243,000 illegal young drivers on our roads.
Many illegal drivers cite the huge cost of an insurance policy as being the reason for not having cover. Yet the risks of not having a policy are huge, not just for themselves, but also for anybody they may be unfortunate enough to crash into.
The BBC reports the story of 21 year old Gary Street, who was hit by an uninsured driver at 30mph in Manchester two years ago.
A £2.3m advertising campaign launched last week to warn of the risks of driving whilst under the influence of drugs has received a mixed reception from the British public and road safety experts.
The television advert warns motorists that police can spot the involuntary signs of someone being under the influence of drugs if they are stopped. These signs include severely dilated or constricted pupils. The advert shows a car carrying several young people with their eyes enlarged, adding: “Your eyes will give you away.”
Young men aged between 17 and 29 are thought to be most likely to drive while on illegal drugs. Indeed, a recent survey in Scotland suggested that 81% of clubbers have driven whilst under the influence of illegal drugs.
The Department for Transport (DfT) estimates that as many as one in five drivers or motorcyclists killed in road accidents may have an impairing drug (legal or illegal) in their system. Transport Secretary Lord Adonis said in a recent interview, “Whatever one’s views on drug taking, we’ve got to make it absolutely socially unacceptable to drive while under the influence of drugs, because it can kill.”
A shocking new video has been made for school pupils in an attempt to reduce crashes caused by drivers texting whilst driving.
The short 30-minute film called ‘COW’ shows Cassie Cowan, a teenage girl, killing four people as a result of her using her mobile phone to send a text. A clip from the film is shown below…
It includes footage of all the emergency services attending the crash scene, including the air ambulance, police and firefighters.
Today, the goverment launches it’s latest campaign against drivers texting whilst on the move. The Think! campaign is especially targetted at young drivers, 30% of whom admit to texting at the wheel.
The Department for Transport noted that using a mobile phone at the wheel is considered the second most unacceptable driving behaviour among motorists with 93% agreeing that texting while driving is dangerous. However, 12% of all motorists admit to texting while driving.
Whilst online this morning, I came across this unbelivable video from CNN, showing a bus driver, driving disabled passengers in Texas, crashing into stationary traffic whilst texting:
The new radio campaign features a driver’s voice spelling out a text message followed by the harrowing sound of a car crash. Click here to listen to it.
An online ‘driving challenge’ game is also available, which demonstrates how using a mobile at the wheel can completely distract the driver. Try it out for yourself!
According to a recent study of 1.7 million drivers by insurance company elephant.co.uk, drivers of black-coloured cars are the most likely to break speed limits.
The survey found that 25.4% of black-vehicle owners have speeding convictions, and they are also 9% more likely than the average driver to have speeding endorsements on their driving licences.
The next “speediest” colour was grey, with 25.1% of grey car owners having speeding convictions, followed by silver, blue and brown.
Owners of purple-coloured cars were least likely to have been caught exceeding speed limit, while owners of white, yellow and red cars have comparatively few convictions as well.
In the past year, drivers in Merseyside were fined more than £1.2m for using their mobile phones while driving.
The Driving Standards Agency has amended the rules regarding the display of tax discs when a candidate takes their driving test. Previously, if the tax disc displayed in the vehicle had expired the candidate was ineligible to take their driving test.
They found that more than 20% of 17 to 20 year olds are not covered by a valid car insurance policy, which amounts to a staggering 243,000 illegal young drivers on our roads.
