Prizewinners at the
World Road Safety Film Festival
On 23 March, the Palais des Nations hosted the first World
Road Safety Film Festival on the occasion of the 48th
session of the UNECE Working Party on Road Traffic
Safety (WP.1). The festival was organized by UNECE in
cooperation with Laser Europe.
“This is the first time that such a festival has been held at the Palais
des Nations and it illustrates one of the major concerns of our member
States – road safety”, said José Capel Ferrer, Director of the UNECE
Transport Division, opening the Festival.
Films were shown from over 30 countries representing all regions of
the world. Selected by an international jury composed of experts in
communication for road safety, the films were classified in the following
five categories: communication and campaigns, education for road
safety and driver training, risk prevention for professional drivers, road
safety innovations, and television broadcasts.
The jury, chaired by Luis Franco (Montevideo), was composed of Angelo
Ferlazzo (Rome), Rohit Baluja (New Delhi), Martine-Sophie Fouvez
(European Conference of Ministers of Transport) and Georges van Aerschot (Belgium). The prizes were presented to the winners by Marek Belka,
UNECE Executive Secretary.
In the category Communication, first prize was awarded to Denmark
for the film «Dead Man Walking», by Jonas Arnby. In the category
Education, first prize went to Israel for the cartoon film for children
entitled «Zoo on Wheels», by Einat Bilitzki. In the Professionals
category, first prize went to «Portrait of Claude Nurdin», by Fouad
Benhamou. First prize in the Innovations category went to the Develter
driving simulator. In the TV broadcast category first prize was awarded
to «Secours pour un cerveau câblé pour ça», prepared by Romain
Cipière for the town of Aubagne in France.
The jury awarded special prizes to films from the Sultanate of
Oman, Morocco and Cambodia.
For more information contact
jose.capel.ferrer@unece.org, marie-noelle.poirier@unece.org or
christopher.smith@unece.org.
Website: http://www.unece.org/trans/roadsafe/filmfestival.html
Awareness through guilt
Interview with René La Coursell, CEO of the Danish Road Safety Council. Denmark won first prize in the Communication category with the film “Dead Man Walking”.
The Danish film shows a youngster
who has killed one of his friends in a
car accident while he was driving.
You see him dragging around the
dead body of his friend who is
gripping his ankle. Why do you
target youngsters?
Because one third of injuries and deaths on the road are due to young
drivers between 18 and 24 years old. So we really have to address them.
But the problem is that they are not really listening.
In order to get them to listen to you, you have to grab their attention.
We did a lot of interviews with these young drivers. The problem is that
they are not afraid of getting themselves killed, even killing somebody
else.The only thing that matters to them is their friends. So much of our
campaign is aimed at guilt, and the major guilt for them is injuring or
killing their friends.
You are using the same approach for other groups?
No! Humour is a good way of scaring people. But scaring is not always
possible. You can scare people into wearing safety belts by showing them
bad accidents. But to ask them to behave it is difficult to be scary.
How was Dead Man Walking received?
There is a very funny story about this film. When we tried to show
the film in the commercials of one of our national broadcasting
companies, they refused because they said that they were not
allowed to show dead people in a commercial. We had a long discussion
with the legal department of this broadcasting company to
try to explain to them that we were not showing a dead person, but
a symbol of guilt.
Nevertheless they wouldn’t let us show the fi lm. So we had to
show it in the movie theatres or in other commercial stations
abroad which were broadcasting in Denmark. There was a lot of
discussion on Danish television about this ban. Because of that all the
youngsters were very much involved in the discussion.
We have never had so many downloads from our website – because the
youngsters wanted to see the movie. On national television where they
don’t have any commercials they showed it during the news, which was
far better than any other publicity.
Furthermore the film did win a prize in Denmark.
Can you measure the impact of such a film?
Yes, we can! One important thing was that youngsters were talking about
this film. Another thing was asking them whether they had seen it. Lots of
them had seen it and lots of them liked it. That is very important, but what
is even more important is that they discussed it with others, because it
was a forbidden commercial. When they start discussing it with other people,
it gains extra value.
Did you see any impact in real life?
Yes, we did. But you have to realize that the number of young people aged
between 18 and 24 is currently very limited.
However in the coming years, between 2007 and 2012, a major group
will enter this age range. In fact there will be 25% more youngsters
between the ages of 18 and 24 then.
Are you making films for younger children?
Yes, we have kids’ programmes for schools and television.
And for the elderly?
Yes, we have also a major programme for the elderly, mainly to encourage
them to use helmets when riding a bicycle. If we look at statistics of
people killed while cycling, every second one is over 65. All of them
died from head damage. This is exactly the same for kids under 12
years old. From 12 to 65 they die from internal bleeding. Head damage
is very important for the elderly because when they were young helmets
were not used.
We are trying a programme to make it fashionable to use these helmets.
Then we have another programme to make the elderly think about
whether they are still fit to drive. If they don’t feel so they can give back
their driving licence and ride free on public transportation.
Children set the rules
Interview with Dan Link, Vice-Chairman of the UNECE Working Party on Road Traffic Safety, and Head of Infrastructure and Traffic Safety, Israel. Israel won first prize in the Education category with the film “Zoo on Wheels”.
What are the best films for raising
people’s awareness on road
safety?
There are thousands of ways to
influence people. Some are very
deductive films. They show you how
to cross the street, you have to look right and left, you don’t do it in
the vicinity of a bus, and so on. Other films make you think. And there
is a great deal of divergence in philosophy. Some try to scare you.
All fatal accidents are terrible. Just to show these accidents or their
effects is enough to scare people. And it doesn’t make any difference
whether it’s in Denmark or in Oman. Some films have an effect on
some people. There is no one universal method.
Does it depend on the country?
There are some countries where you would tend to use humour to put
a point across. There are countries where it is important to show how
gloomy traffic and lack of safety is. Many European countries are
willing to use humour, which would be sacrilegious in other countries.
In my country we found out that it is not sufficient to say be careful,
drive carefully. You have to say something very specific, like always
wear your safety belt.
Always give a hand to a little child trying to cross the street, drive on
the proper side of the road. Generalizations don’t help. We found out
that children in the back seat have a very big impact on their parents.
For example, we have a clip where the children say to their parents“Why are you wearing safety belts but you don’t ask us to wear one?
Aren’t we important?” And they add “In the car, we set the rules”. We
organized a competition entitled “Who clicks first?” Children were standing outside a car and the aim
of the competition was to know who would click his or her safety belt
first. It was very successful. Some people are influenced by such an
approach. But of course not all of them. The idea is that people should
remember the message.
The best investment is in children?
I’m not sure, because the human element is very difficult to work with.
Changing infrastructures may have a bigger impact. In some cases the
infrastructure must be changed, for example making an intersection
into a roundabout is in itself an excellent investment
– it is very difficult to have a fatal accident on a roundabout while at
intersections it is much easier.
It seems that there are many accidents involving 18 to 25 yearolds.
What can be done about it?
It is a very difficult age and it is very hard to do something about it.
The capabilities of these young adults are very big and it is difficult to
persuade them that something is beyond their power. You can tell
small children what to do and what not to do, but for this age range it
is very hard, especially in our country where they are already in the
military at that age. It is a very tough group but we limit their ability to
drive. For example, for the first 3 months new drivers can’t drive without
an adult, and for the first two years and under 21 they may not
carry more than two passengers. This is because we have noticed that
the social pressure when you have more than two people in a car is 10
times higher than when you have fewer. This is probably the group of
people over which we have the least control.
On the other hand they have other capabilities – for example quicker
reactions on the road than their parents.
Speaking about older people, would you agree with asking
elderly drivers to give back their driving licence?
Age is certainly a problem for driving. But older people drive less than
younger ones. They know their limitations. For example they don’t
drive at night. But I still think that nothing mandatory should be done.
Extract form “UNECE Weekly”
issue N° 165, 27-31 March 2006
© 2006 UN Special |