Sadly, the conclusion of that oft-witnessed scenario isn’t always as happy for all concerned. Dan Watt, journalist, band booker and Beat’s public face of the Roadsmarts campaign, remembers the night he came into contact with a drunk driver. “About ten years ago, I was hit by a drunk driver at about 2am, when I was crossing the road,” Watt recalls. “It was terrible. I spent four months in hospital, I had head injuries, I was put into a coma for a month, and I even had to wear a nappy.”
It’s that dangerous, and often tragic situation that the Roadsmarts campaign aims to address. Roadsmarts is a public education campaign that uses a combination of social media, gig promotion, a smart phone application and interviews with musicians to reinforce a simple message: when you’ve been drinking, or someone you’re with has been drinking – don’t get in the car.
The genesis of the Roadsmarts campaign was a proposal from Carl Gardiner, head of Mushroom Marketing, to the Transport Accident Commission. Gardiner and the TAC approached Beat, and put together a proposal to raise awareness of road safety issues using the communication channels of the local music industry.
For the TAC, the idea was consistent with the TAC’s broader public relations campaign to raise awareness of the dangers of drunk driving – and consequently, to further chip away at the annual road toll – as well as providing a specific focus to a highly-vulnerable demographic: the so-called ‘youth demographic’, which is typically over-represented in road accidents. “TAC research into ways to influence young risk-taking drivers, has shown that young people are very motivated by the responsibility of looking after their mates,” says Amanda Bavin, Senior Manager, Corporate Affairs at the TAC. “While taking different approaches and using different spokespeople helps the credibility of the message, the research shows that authoritarian voices are not always effective. By using real stories and real role models and people with like-minded values, messages are more likely to resonate.”
Roadsmarts also has the support of the Victorian Police. “Drink-driving remains one of the biggest killers on our roads and to be able to target and reach young drivers through music industry communication channels means we are getting our messages out there and creating conversations where they haven’t been before,” says Road Policing Command Assistant Commissioner Bob Hill.
Road safety campaigns aren’t new. In recent years, the TAC has made its public message ever more stark, with images of bloodied car crash victims and tearful relatives appearing regularly on television. Watt, whose collection of interviews with musicians on Beat TV regularly includes a few questions dedicated to road safety, says Roadsmarts both complements and refines the broader road safety message. “The TAC has done big campaigns very well. Kids who’ve grown up with those vivid advertisements have become desensitised to them. So with this campaign to get the message of getting home responsibly across in a plausible, interesting way,” Watt says. The Roadsmarts smartphone application allows gig patrons to access the numbers of taxi companies, provides links and updates to public transport timetables, and generally reinforces the basic message: get home safely. And it’s not just drunk driving that’s the issue. Fatigue, as highway signs regularly remind us, is a killer. “Musicians in Australia spend a lot of time on the road,” Watt says. “In one of the interviews I do, Kim Churchill has a story of sleeping at the wheel during a massive tour. So when we talk about that, it’s in a really organic way, and just to remind people to plan ahead, and not to take risks.”
While the campaign has already been successful – Watt relays the story of someone commenting on social media that they’d decided to eschew driving after realising fatigue was a significant risk – Roadsmarts will continue to evolve as long as the road toll remains. “We think the Roadsmarts model has worked really well and the support it has received from the live music community has been great,” says Carl Gardiner. “If we can get more support from our amazing live music community, which in turn gets more young people to avoid high risk behaviour on our roads, then I think that is an outcome well worth pursuing.“
Watt sums up the message of the campaign with a rhetorical question. “You take your music seriously, so why don’t you take home getting safely seriously?”
BY PATRICK EMERY
