Second award for teenage distraction campaign

A campaign targeting teenagers, developed by Nottinghamshire’s road safety team, has been recognised in an awards’ ceremony after being picked up and used by Network Rail.

Nottinghamshire’s ‘Ditch the Distraction’ campaign was ‘highly commended’ in the 2013 Network Rail Partnership Awards which were presented on 24 July. This award comes a few weeks after the Local Government Media awards when the campaign was runner-up in the community safety category.

The original road safety campaign targeted teenage pupils, who are over represented in pedestrian casualties, calling on them to ‘Ditch the Distraction’ caused by the use of headphones and mobile phones when walking to and from school.

Network Rail approached the county’s road safety team after seeing pavement art outside secondary schools in Nottinghamshire, which was created as part of the campaign.

Network Rail had identified a similar problem with young people using unguarded rail crossings and asked if they could use both the idea and the artwork.

‘Ditch the Distraction’ is based on an original concept by Zena Oliver, Nottinghamshire’s principal road safety officer.

Pam Shaw, Nottinghamshire’s county road safety manager, said: “The campaign proved memorable with 68% understanding the message and nearly all respondents scoring its effectiveness as good or better.

“A considerable reduction in casualties to this age group was observed during the campaign, which ran between September and November 2012.”

Contact Pam Shaw on 0115 9774448 for more information.