THINK! festive drink-drive campaign seeks help of ‘mates’

The Safer Essex Roads Partnership is supporting the annual festive THINK! drink-drive campaign, which aims to encourage young men to step in if their mate is tempted to drink and drive.

Launched today (14 Dec), this year’s activities build on the award-winning #matesmatter campaign, devised last year, which THINK! says has led to the biggest shift in over a decade in young people’s attitudes towards drink driving.

The campaign features three new films – one of which sees friends in a pub intervene when a man picks up his car keys after he has been drinking, kicking the keys around the venue before they’re taken away by the landlady, who calls for a taxi.

Another shows a couple kissing, ignoring everything around them until a man picks up his car keys and goes to leave. The couple break the embrace and the boyfriend kisses the man as the girlfriend takes the keys, and says “Someone’s getting the bus home”.

The films will be broadcast online and on social media across the festive period as well as at football grounds, on Spotify and in pubs.

Jesse Norman, road safety minister, said:

“Drink driving needlessly puts human lives at risk.

“Our hard-hitting THINK! campaigns have already shown a positive impact on road users, encouraging safer behaviour so as to reduce the number of people killed and injured.

“This festive season, the simple message is that friends need to step in and stop their friends from getting behind the wheel after drinking.”

THINK! was established in 2000 as the Government’s designated road safety campaign and has become recognised internationally for its ‘iconic and groundbreaking’ campaigns that have challenged dangerous behaviours on Britain’s roads.

14 December 2018