The Fourth United Nations Global Road Safety Week kicks in less than two weeks time from today! From 8-14 May 2017, campaigners, organizations, companies, governments and many more will encourage the world to #SlowDown. The Week is dedicated to speed management and we can all take steps to make our roads safer.
We encourage our global youth network for road safety to take the pledge to #SlowDown and encourage your friends, famil, colleagues, loved and just about anybody else who uses the roads to also #SlowDown!
There are lots of ways to take action during the Week. See how you can get involved.
If you’ve already taken the pledge, you can tag your friend to #SlowDown. You can do that here.
Don’t forget, if you are running an event, please register it in the global calendar of events. Register your event here.
YOURS Communications Officer, Manpreet Darroch takes a picture with the #SlowDown Signboard and pledges to #SlowDown.
The Team at 20’s Plenty for Us (UK) have put together this guidance of creating a photo opportunity for the UN Week:
Images and photos matter to slower speeds activism. Thinking about, and setting up, a photo opportunity is a key part of doing a successful #SlowDown day and press release to ask for, or celebrate, slower speeds in the Fourth UN Global Road Safety Week. 8-14 May 2017. The theme is Save Lives: #SlowDown
- Register – please first log your intention to do something on the UN site – It’s OK if details are sketchy. We need as many campaigns to join in as possible, so just put a marker down that you are doing something. Claim your free £20 worth of 20’s Plenty stickers to the first 20 registrations via rod.k@20splenty.org
- Who? The ideal picture has a prominent person/people supporting 20mph limits and road safety. You could invite all the Councillors, candidates, Police and Crime Commissioner, MP, Director of Public Health. Plus local community figure heads or celebrities (as they are always newsworthy). If you can, then get children there with the photo permission of their parents. Eg young kids on bikes make great photos. Crucially, you must invite the local press photographers along (and ideally reporters, radio TV etc) or at least someone who is going to reliably take lots of high quality pictures or even videos.
- Where? On a street you want 20mph limits / where there has been a casualty (see www.crashmaps.co.uk )/ outside the council buildings. Have a back up indoor location for rain.
- When? Ideally early in the week so Monday 8 or Tuesday 9 May so that it gets in the news in 8-14 May. It depends when you and the key people are available. We suggest you email or ring the key one or two people and arrange it with them and then tell everyone else on your lists that date, time and place.
- What? A Slow Down toolkit by 20’s Plenty for Us is here. It’s full of ideas for what to do/have in pictures like people holding 20mph posters, UN Road Safety signs with why they support slower speeds written on, chalking out casualties on roads/pavements, roadside memorial flowers, speed watch, banners, a community walkabout with elected people and much more.
- Email out your press release at least a few days before (ideally up to a working week in advance) – see the template downloadable from here. Tell us too.
- Confirm – Ring the press to check they got it and book the photographer to be there.
- Have fun on the day. Take pictures with politicians of many parties together, or apart if they insist.
- Distribute photos – Once you’ve done your event photo/s please send them out widely eg on email, twitter, facebook, to the press etc with a write up of what happened, who is in the pictures, their quotes etc. We’d like to know and also WHO would be delighted too – send to mediainquiries@who.int
- Use the photos on your ongoing campaigning materials.
- Reward yourself somehow for being an active campaigner. Well done and thank you very much. Without grassroots activists calling for change, not a lot can change, so we rely on you.
DOWNLOAD THE #SLOWDOWN DAY TOOLKIT
Every day we have good reasons to go somewhere important, whether we leave our homes for work, school or play. However, getting safely to where we are going is as important as getting there at all.
By slowing down, observing speed limits appropriate for the roads and not speeding, we make the roads safer for all. For children walking to school, for the elderly crossing the road, for workers driving to places of work and all road users. Speeding is a major risk factor. The more your speed, the higher the risk of a crash as well as the severity of crash consequences. Speeding also affects other road users such as pedestrians and cyclists. Slowing down is safe.
