MEDIA RELEASE

Far North Road Safety Campaign

6 July 2017

A Far North Road Safety education campaign that was launched in 2016 has continued to be developed and can now be seen throughout the Far North district.  The One Tear Too Many campaign messages include Slow Down, Drive Sober and Seatbelts On, encouraging drivers and passengers to consider their behavior on the road.

The campaign has seen a number of billboards placed on State Highways throughout the Far North region and Whangarei. The image shows a woman with one tear representing Papatuanuku, our Mother Earth, the one tear signifying one death on our roads as too many.

Far North REAP in partnership with Petricevich Buses in Kaitaia have extended the campaign by promoting the road safety messages on the company’s school buses as a mobile visual.

Kiri Sloane-Hobson, Road Safety Education Manager at Far North REAP states the refreshed campaign will renew interest in road safety messages at a local level. The campaign tag line has been created by local rangatahi. Ms Sloane-Hobson says the campaign goal is to engage drivers and their passengers with easily understood messages, with an overall purpose to reduce road trauma on our roads. “The impact on whanau and community of drivers choosing to speed, drink drive and not wear their seatbelts is a painful one. We have lost 12 people in the far north district in the last seven months”.

According to crash statistics released by the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) the Northland region has seen 19 fatalities on the road in 2017 (as of 4 July 2017). Twelve of the 19 fatalities have taken place in the Far North District. This compares to a total of 27 fatalities in Northland during 2016, nine of which were in the Far North.

Targeting driver behaviour is one strategy in the government’s Safer Journeys/Safe System approach. The four pillars of the system are; safe road use, safe vehicles, safe speeds, and safe roads and roadsides.

END

Photo provided by Far North REAP

NAMES OF PEOPLE IN PHOTO:

Left: Nicole Herbert, Petricevich Buses

Right: Janelle Laurence, Far North REAP