Young road users and the growing number of trucks on Melbourne’s inner city roads were the focus for Re:act’s 2018 road safety campaign for 18-25 year olds.

Final presentations took place yesterday at South Melbourne strategic creative agency Hard Edge.‘Size Matters’, ‘Choose the Kindspot’ and ‘What are the Odds?’ were some of the creative and clever ways third year Swinburne University Communication Design Students expressed important safety messages around young people sharing roads with heavy vehicles in this year’s Re:act project.

But it was the ‘Don’t Truck Around’ campaign – created by Caitlin Preyser, Charlotte Hicks and Grace Kirby – that took out the top prize and will now be translated into a $6,000 campaign across Swinburne’s Hawthorn campus during O Week. Representatives from each of the top three finalists will also present their campaign at the Australian Trucking Association’s (ATA’s) Trucking Australia conference on April 19th, with all campaigns also being displayed at the event.

Re:act is an initiative of strategic creative agency Hard Edge in collaboration with Swinburne University. The behavioural change project is now a compulsory course requirement for final year students. Each year’s creative challenge is centred around making 18-25 year olds consider their actions by increasing awareness of the dangers they may face on the roads.

“We believe this is the first time a behavioural change campaign about vulnerable road users around trucks has been specifically targeted at the 18-25 year old segment,” Hard Edge ManagingDirector Andrew Hardwick said. “Previous Re:act projects have focused on safer use of mobile phones in vehicles and driving the morning after drinking. With the number of trucks on our roads expected to double in the next 20 years, the 2018 campaign is another significant step in improving road safety among inexperienced drivers.”

Re:act has the support of several key organisations with a passion for road safety, including the Transport Accident Commission, RACV, Transurban and the Australian Road Research Board (ARRB), which coordinates the National Road Safety Partnership Program (NRSPP), The Australian Trucking Association (ATA) and Melbourne Metro Rail Authority also became Re:act partners this year, realising project outputs could produce tangible ways to help them engage vulnerable road users with road safety messages.

NRSPP Manager Jerome Carslake said both young road users and heavy vehicles were over-represented in crash statistics. “Many road users have a limited understanding of the realities of safe behaviour around trucks. Re:act 2018 is a chance for young people – another group over-represented in crash statistics – to get their driving journey off to a safe start,” he said.

This year’s Re:act project had the largest participation yet, with 30 final year Swinburne design students working collaboratively in ten groups of three, according to Course Director Nicole Wragg and Industry Placement Program Coordinator Anthony Elliott.

For more on Re:act visit www.re-act.com.au
To view the full press release visit https://www.nrspp.org.au/resources/18052-2/

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