Students in the annual Re:act program develop fresh thinking and positive messaging in their road safety campaigns to speak to, raise awareness, and influence their peers to share the roads responsibly.

As part of Re:act 2019, 43 communication design students across Swinburne University in Victoria and University of Technology Sydney (UTS) in NSW were challenged to create a campaign that builds shared responsibility between vehicle drivers and vulnerable road users, including pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists, and encouraged understanding between different road user types.

This was the first year the annual Re:act program expanded outside Victoria. It is intended the program will expand across Australia in 2020, with plans to introduce it internationally starting with the UK.

The Re:act 2019 campaigns this week determined by the partner panel to be the most compelling were:

  • #ThanksMate: Created by UTS student Beth Sacco, the #ThanksMate campaign took a positive approach, reinforcing positive behaviours by thanking road users for doing the right thing by each other.
  • 100% Human: The 100% Human campaign highlighted how all road users play a role in keeping each other safe, aiming to unify young road users for a common cause. It was created by Swinburne students Caitlin Gmehling, Felicity Lemke, Max Bufardeci and Riley van Ingen.

Feedback from students’ involved in Re:act 2019 suggested researching and developing the campaigns also improved their own behaviour on the roads, as drivers, pedestrians and cyclists. With funding of $3,000 from the Re:act program, the students responsible for each campaign will work with the support of Melbourne behaviour change agency Hard Edge to launch their campaigns on their respective university campuses during O week. Students will also be presenting their work to organisations and at industry conferences.

Now in its fourth year, Re:act is a road safety behavioural change program that challenges university communication design students to raise awareness of road safety issues and change behaviour among their 18-25 year old peer group and the wider community.

Started in 2016 by Hard Edge in collaboration with Swinburne, Re:act is a collaboration between the agency, universities and a group of road safety and industry partners with a passion for road safety.

The 2019 Re:act theme focused on the safe interaction of vulnerable road users with vehicles; previous year’s briefs included the safer use of mobile phones in vehicles, safer driver interaction with trucks, and driving the morning after drinking.

See below for quotes attributable to Re:act founders, road safety and industry partners, lecturers and participants as well as the selected 2019 campaigns.

For more information on Re:act, including videos from the Swinburne and UTS pitch days, visit www.re-act.com.au

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