A young woman who was paralysed from the chest down during a traumatic car crash at the age of 15 has defied all expectations to became a successful beauty blogger who counts Kylie Jenner amongst her fans. Now 25, Jordan Bone, from Kings Lynn, Norfolk, is busy running a YouTube channel which has more than 17,000 subscribers, a blog and an Instagram account with more than 23,000 followers.

Highway agencies are increasingly using humor and wit to try to get people to drive safer but do the messages work? We’ve covered the topic of jokes and comedy in road safety before.

Utah transportation officials call the three months between Memorial Day and Labor Day the state’s “100 Deadliest Days,” because of a surge in highway deaths that regularly occur when residents take summer trips. The fatality rate is 35 percent higher during that time than during the rest of the year.

Utah officials are also worried because the number of traffic fatalities in the state, which hit the lowest point in half a century in 2012, has been inching up for the last two and a half years. So this summer, Utah will begin a tactic that’s increasingly popular among transportation agencies: Using electronic highway signs to display catchy, and sometimes even funny, messages to make motorists focus on highway safety.

Every Monday, it’s a new message. One week signs displayed “Steering wheel: not a hands-free device.” Another week, they showed “Turn signals: the original instant message.” To discourage speeding, the agency used “It’s not a race, leave some space.”

The lines alone won’t get Utah to its goal of zero road deaths, but officials in the state — like their counterparts elsewhere — hope the messages will get people talking and thinking about highway safety.

“I don’t know that anybody is going to say that an electronic message board is going to change the world, but it can be part of that plan,” said John Gleason, a spokesman for the Utah Department of Transportation.

A study commissioned by the Federal Highway Administration shows that drivers in four cities responded positively to more straightforward safety messages, such as “Click it or ticket” and “Slow down, save a life.” Survey respondents said the on-road messages would be more likely to change their behavior than messages shared in other media, such as TV commercials. The study did not track drivers’ actual behavior in response to the signs. The messages were less effective for younger drivers, those with lower education levels and those who received a ticket or were in a crash in the last five years, according to the survey.

Utah launched its effort this spring with “That seat belt looks good on you,” which is still the message that received the most positive feedback. The state only displays the safety messages on Mondays, but it also shows the year-to-date count of road deaths every Friday.

Gleason said Utah got the idea, along with some of the messages, from other states. Massachusetts, for example, got a lot of attention last year for a campaign that played off of the regional dialect, with signs such as “Changing lanes? Use yah blinkah” and “Make yah ma proud, wear yah seatbelt.”

Iowa began posting safety witticisms nearly two years ago. It’s taken inspiration from pop culture (“May the 4th be with you. Text I will not” on Star Wars Day) and used humor (“Get your head out of your apps”) to get its points across. One of the most popular messages, though, succeeded on its content and clever formatting (“Pass on left; drive on right,” with the message divided accordingly).

“What we found is that the more popular ones are the ones where we’re pushing the envelope a little bit and not sounding like a government agency,” said Andrea Henry, a spokeswoman for the Iowa Department of Transportation.

Iowa, like Utah, focuses most of its messages on five driver behaviors: distracted driving, sober driving, drowsy driving, seat belt use and speeding. But the agency will also address seasonal topics, such as work zone safety and awareness of pedestrians and cyclists.

Iowa road deaths in the last two years, while the Transportation Department has displayed the signs, are lower than in prior years. At this point it’s impossible to say how much of a role the messages played in that decline, but Iowa recorded 365 road deaths in 2012, compared with 317 in 2013 and 321 in 2014.

“Our more attainable goal is to get recognition in people noticing the boards, talking about the boards,” Henry said. The agency hopes the messages will “enter [drivers’’ consciousness as they’re getting behind the wheel.”

The Illinois Tollway, which operates a number of highways primarily in the Chicago region, asked residents this spring to propose safety messages and then, using an online vote, to choose which ones would end up on electronic message boards. More than 22,000 people participated in the contest.

“The new safety messages have only been displayed along our roadways for about two and a half months, so it’s too soon to have any measurable results,” said spokesman Dan Rozek. “But the contest in and of itself was successful in focusing media and public attention on the public safety challenges.”

According to a new poll by Gallup, an American research company, only 30% of Americans believe that legalised use of marijuana will make drivers ‘a lot less safe’. Some U.S. states have legalized marijuana for recreational and medicinal use which could see the rise of drug driving incidents increase. We give you the low down on drug driving.

As some U.S. states have legalized marijuana for recreational and medicinal use, 30% of Americans say legalization will make driving in those states a lot less safe. Another 17% expect it to make driving a little less safe. Half of Americans, however, say it will not make much of a difference.

Across the 23 states and the District of Columbia that have some form of legalization, 49% say marijuana legalization will not make much difference in driving safety. This is on par with the 52% in the other 27 states who say legalizing pot would not make much of a difference for road safety. Similarly, 29% in states with some form of marijuana legalization say the roads will be a lot less safe, roughly matching the 30% saying the same in states with no legalized marijuana.

Legalized pot across the U.S. ranges from recreational to medical purposes, and marijuana use on the whole has increased since 2007. While in many states, medical marijuana has been legal for more than a decade, the legalization of recreational marijuana has started only in the past few years — with four states and Washington, D.C., having laws in place that permit pot use and actually regulating it for tax revenues. Studies have shown that marijuana use affects reaction times, judgment and awareness, but there is no consensus on whether driving while high will adversely affect road safety.

Results varied most noticeably when broken down by age. The younger the respondent, the less they’re concerned about legal cannabis impacting road safety; About 63 percent of those 18-29 and 57 percent of those 30-49 said legal pot wouldn’t make much of a difference on road safety. Those percentages lessened in older age groups. The 65-plus grouping was the only one that had more people saying streets would be “a lot less safe” (39 percent) than those saying it wouldn’t make much of a difference (31 percent).

If the trend toward states legalizing marijuana continues, it may affect millions more Americans directly or indirectly in the coming years. Gallup’s new study on public views about the effect of legalization on driving will serve as a baseline to measure how these perceptions may change over time.

While the effect of pot use on driving may not be as severe as the effect of alcohol, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has stated there are increased risks associated with driving while high. States’ efforts to strengthen regulations and enforcement related to driving after smoking marijuana will likely be guided by how frequently accidents can be traced to pot use. And this, in turn, will likely influence public opinion as well.

What do we know?
Alcohol and drug consumption by road users results in a higher crash rate. These substances impact on human behaviour and judgment. No person is too skilled, too big, or too clever to avoid the effects. In many countries including the UK, it is illegal to drive if your driving is impaired by drugs or if you have certain drugs above a specified level in your blood. 

Drug driving is incredibly dangerous. Behind the wheel, any impairment both physically and mentally will increase the likelihood of a crash happening.

In the UK, if the police stop you and think you’re on drugs they will either test you at the roadside using a drug screening device or a “Field Impairment” test to assess your ability to drive. Cannabis users often think they are safer when they are under the influence because they drive more slowly. However, cannabis slows reaction and decision times. It can also distort perception of time and distance, and result in poorer concentration and control of the vehicle.

Some advice:

Don’t accept a lift from a driver you know has taken drugs