This Article Was Sourced From Hard Edge: Selected Re:act TAFE WA road safety campaign focuses on myths around combating fatigue. Student’s meme-inspired road safety campaign educates about risks of fatigue – Re:act TAFE Queensland selected campaign announced. Selected Re:act TAFE WA road safety campaign focuses on myths around combating fatigue.
The campaigns were created as part of the annual Re:act road safety behaviour change program, which challenges TAFE graphic design students to create a campaign that raises awareness among 16-24 year old road users, including apprentices, of a critical road safety issue. The 2021 topic was fatigue.
An initiative of strategic behaviour change agency Hard Edge, Re:act has been raising awareness and changing behaviour among young road users for several years, running in selected Australian universities since 2016. In 2021, the program grew to include TAFE students, with Holmesglen TAFE in Victoria, North Metropolitan TAFE in Western Australia and TAFE Queensland all running the program in the first half of the year.
Re:act founder Andrew Hardwick said selected Re:act TAFE campaigns would be developed for public execution via Re:act media partner oOh!media’s digital assets, including on TAFE campuses and in regional areas.
A thought-provoking road safety campaign, which puts a clever twist on the need to ‘fill your tank’ before you drive, is the selected Re:act TAFE 2021 campaign in Victoria.
The ‘Rest, then drive – that energy drink won’t fill the tank’ message was devised by Holmesglen TAFE graphic design students Sasha Price and Carly Diep to raise awareness among young drivers of drowsy driving.
Sasha Price said the idea behind the students’ campaign was to relate filling up your car with fuel to ‘filling up’ your body with sleep, adding that participating in Re:act had raised her awareness about the risks of drowsy driving and changed her behaviour.
“Our campaign idea was to use a fuel gauge but you’re filling up on sleep instead of fuel,” she said. “What we wanted to put behind the campaign was the anxiety you feel when your fuel is getting low and convey the idea that you wouldn’t do that to yourself – you wouldn’t try to drive long distances on ‘empty’.
WorkSafe Executive Director of Health and Safety Julie Nielsen said the selected campaign cleverly played on a ‘running on empty’ theme to highlight what is a serious issue for young workers on the road.
“WorkSafe congratulates Sasha and Carly on their thought-provoking work, which is helping bring attention to the risk of fatigue among young workers,” she said.
The ‘Take a Break Mate – You Drive Lousy When Ya Drowsy’ message was created by Queensland TAFE student Tori Sharpe, and was the selected Re:act 2021 campaign in Queensland.
A sunglass-clad kangaroo behind the wheel, colloquial phrasing and rhyming messaging – how else would a road safety campaign educate young drivers about the risks of driving fatigued?
Tori Sharpe said she aimed to use humour in her campaign to get the target audience’s attention before delivering a factual road safety message. Since participating in Re:act, Tori has also paid more attention to the signs of fatigue when she or people close to her are driving.
“Absurdity grabs attention quickly, and a kangaroo driving a car is definitely absurd,” Tori said. “You need to capture attention very quickly with Gen Z and so if we capture it with absurdity first then they will pay more attention to the message.
“The thinking behind Tori’s campaign was insightful and impressive,” Re:act founder Andrew Hardwick said. “It mimics the use of memes, a communication form the young target audience is familiar with and relates to, and presents an important road safety message in way that resonates.
An eye-catching road safety campaign that focuses on young drivers using stimulants like coffee to counteract the effects of fatigue is the selected Re:act TAFE 2021 campaign in Western Australia.
Devised by North Metropolitan TAFE graphic design student Stephanie Simpson, the ‘Not a Substitute for Sleep’ campaign raises awareness among young drivers of the risks of driving fatigued by highlighting stimulants cannot overcome the effects of driving tired.
Stephanie Simpson, the TAFE student who created the selected campaign, said research conducted as part of Re:act uncovered that a high proportion of young drivers turned to stimulants to mask the effects of fatigue.
“What stood out when we did our research was that young people in general think it’s okay to use stimulants to combat the symptoms of fatigue, so I wanted a campaign to warn people against that and let them know that the only way to combat fatigue is to get a good night’s rest,” she said.
WA Minister for Road Safety Paul Papalia said he was encouraged by the work being done by students though the Re:act behaviour change project to raise awareness of road safety issues.
“Students are often those who are most at risk in terms of unsafe driving behaviours, so it makes sense to work with them on behaviour change messaging to improve road safety.”
Visit reactforchange.com to learn more about the Re:act program.
Further enquiries: Andrew Hardwick | 0417 334 399 | [email protected]