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Graphic Campaign To Help Cut Deaths From Drink-Driving In Bogotá

Note: World Lung Foundation united with The Union North America. From January 2016, the combined organization is known as “Vital Strategies.”

(September 14th, 2015, Bogotá, Colombia and New York, USA) – World Lung Foundation (WLF) today congratulates Bogotá’s District Department of Transport (Secretaría Distrital de Movilidad) on the launch of a powerful new mass media campaign, entitled “The destination is the choices we make”, which shows the horror that can result from drinking alcohol and then driving – for both the driver and innocent victims. 

The campaign, which is being launched in the run up to Valentine’s Day in Colombia on September 20th, will run through the end of 2015 on TV, radio, social media and print ads. The period between September and January tends to be a peak period for road crashes in Bogotá so officials hope this campaign, together with stronger enforcement, will help to reduce road deaths over the coming months and into the future. World Lung Foundation has provided financial and technical support for the campaign, as part of The Bloomberg Initiative for Global Road Safety (BIGRS) 2015-2019.

The campaign features a public service announcement (PSA) that shows children playing happily in their garden, while elsewhere a young man plays soccer with his friends. He drinks alcohol after the match and then climbs into his car. As he drives along, listening to music, he is unable to control his car and the resulting crash ends up killing one of the children. As the injured driver climbs out of his wrecked car, he cannot believe what he has done. The strapline reinforces the fact that his decision to drink and drive directly led to this terrible outcome.

Sandra Mullin, Senior Vice President, Policy and Communications, World Lung Foundation, said: “We congratulate Bogotá on becoming the first city in The Bloomberg Initiative for Global Road Safety 2015-2019 to run a powerful mass media campaign to educate citizens about the dangers of drinking alcohol and driving. Evidence from around the world shows that the way to reduce the burden of crashes, injury and death associated with drinking and driving is to educate people to make it socially unacceptable and strongly enforce drink-drive laws. We know that powerful, graphic campaigns with a strong emotional message are most likely to deliver improvements in awareness and changes in behavior in road safety, if combined with enforcement. The ad shows that while someone may never intend to cause harm, they can be a killer behind the wheel of their car if they have consumed alcohol. Indeed, around 60% of drink-driving related crashes in Bogotá involve a man driving a car. We believe this campaign, combined with strong enforcement action by the District Department of Transport, will help reduce road deaths in Bogotá and act as an example to other cities.”

This hard-hitting PSA – the concept was adapted from an ad originally created by road safety authorities in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland – has run successfully in other countries, including Germany. The impact of the campaign is increased when it is combined with strict drink-driving laws and strong enforcement in a comprehensive package of road safety measures. In Ireland, social acceptance of drinking and driving halved within two years of this campaign, while road deaths fell by 41 percent within nine years.

The PSA is available to view at http://ow.ly/SbGuG and stills from the PSA are available upon request.

About The Bloomberg Initiative for Global Road Safety (BIGRS) 2015-2019

The Bloomberg Initiative for Global Road Safety (BIGRS) 2015-2019 seeks to reduce fatalities and injuries from road traffic crashes in five low- and middle-income countries and ten cities, including Bogotá, by strengthening road safety legislation at national level and implementing proven road safety interventions at city level. The selected cities will receive senior-level, full-time staff to work within city governments on their road safety initiatives; comprehensive technical assistance from the world’s leading road safety organizations; training for police officers and other relevant city staff; and support to create hard-hitting mass media campaigns. This is the second phase of Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Global Road Safety Initiative and represents a commitment of US$125 million over five years. For more information, please visit http://var/www/html.bloomberg.org/program/public-health/road-safety/