Scottish Good Egg campaign will be ‘biggest yet’

A new-look Good Egg In-Car Child Safety campaign for Scotland launches on Monday 27 June, and the organisers say it will be the biggest yet.

Following 10 years of raising awareness about the dangers to children of inappropriate or incorrectly-fitted child car seats, the Good Egg campaign has been endorsed by road safety authorities as having played a key part in cutting child road casualties in Scotland.

Michael McDonnell, director of Road Safety Scotland, said: "We have seen the number of children killed or seriously injured in cars fall by 72% over the past 10 years which marks a welcome contribution to the GB Government target of a 50% reduction. This is a tremendous success story which I believe could not have been achieved without the Good Egg campaign.

"With even more challenging targets for child casualty reduction set by the Scottish Government for 2020, the Good Egg campaign will clearly be an essential element in our strategy for delivering these targets in the years ahead."

Superintendent Alan Duncan, lead officer for the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland (ACPOS) national campaigns, said: "Recent figures show a fall in child passenger casualties which is encouraging. However, we are still finding children who are either not wearing seatbelts or who are restrained by unsuitable or incorrectly-fitted car seats.

"We fully support the Good Egg Campaign which helps to educate drivers about their responsibilities in relation to in-car child safety and provides practical advice to ensure children are kept safe while on the move."

This year’s campaign is set be the biggest yet with high-profile radio and online advertising backed up by extensive social media activity on Facebook and Twitter.

The campaign will also build on the past success of Good Egg car seat clinics where parents can have the safety of their child seats checked out by experts at convenient locations across Scotland.

Sir Arnold Clark, chairman and chief executive of The Arnold Clark Group, which has sponsored the Good Egg Campaign since 2002, said: "As a father, grandfather and great grandfather I am very conscious that children must be kept safe when they are travelling in a car.

"It doesn’t take much time to check that a car seat is fitted properly and it will always be too late after a collision. I therefore urge parents to go to a Good Egg clinic to ensure that their child seats are fitted safely it could ultimately save their child’s life."

For more information about the 2011 Scottish Good Egg In-Car Child Safety Campaign go to www.protectchild.co.uk.

The campaign features two new radio commercials.

Click here to listen to the first commercial.

Click here to listen to the second commercial.