In the city where we reside we have identified different problems. However, there is one that stands out above the others. We have noticed the number of people who cross with the traffic lights in red and even go through the middle of the street. Our goal is to make people be conscious of a big social issue: run over.
The ideas
First of all, we made an investigation to know the profile of a pedestrian run over. To do that, we had to search in the website of the Dirección General de Tráfico (DGT), that is the government department responsible for everything that takes place on the roads in Spain. On their website, we could find the places in Girona (where our school is located) which have a higher mortality rate due to traffic accidents and its evolution through the past years. Surprisingly, we found out that traffic accidents have not decreased during the last decade. Moreover, we discovered that the profile of a pedestrian run over is a young man, but older than 19 years old. The higher rates of accidents occur between six and nine in the afternoon. However, we also found out that causes of accidents happen, on one hand, because of pedestrians and, on the other hand, due to drivers. The three more typical causes for accidents are velocity excess, alcohol and drugs, and lack of attention while driving.
The initiatives
The objective of our project is to educate the population, both pedestrians and drivers. As a result of our campaign, we would like to try to decrease accidents, because they might cause permanent injuries or even death amongst the people who suffer them. To be effective, we should use new technologies to reach most of the population, but focusing on young people, a vulnerable group to accidents since they are more likely to carry out behaviors that put their safety at risk, they show a greater tendency to skip traffic lights and drive under the influence of drugs (like alcohol), or not pay attention while driving.
We developed an awareness campaign that was divided into different phases. The campaign was addressed to students of our school and, besides, we also disseminated it on our social networks. First of all, we spread a poster explaining the group most prone to traffic accidents how these accidents have evolved over the last years, so that people can realize that, contrary to what it may seem, these accidents have not decreased. However, this it’s not always understood by everyone. Therefore, for making it easy to understand, we also made two flyers, one intended for drivers and another one intended for pedestrians. The objective is that the information can be easily understood by both younger and elder generations. These flyers have been shared in our Instagram account. Due to the exceptional nature of the circumstances that we are experiencing with the pandemic, we have also made a video to raise more awareness among the population and reduce traffic accidents when people return to the "new normality".
