Jack and Jill
The Jack and Jill campaign aims to engage young drivers and
steer them away from reckless driving.
The campaign uses the traditional nursery rhyme to get across a
common theme of a road crashes – a young male driver showing off to
his girlfriend, and paying the ultimate price.
Jack and Jill sped up the
hill,
But crashed on a dicey
corner,
Jack broke down – he’
played the clown,
And killed a
precious daughter.
It’s not only the direct victims – ‘Jack and Jill’ who will be
affected. A fatal road crash devastates family and friends who have
to carry on life without their loved ones. Even when the outcome
isn’t tragic, the injuries can be horrendous and life-changing for
families.
It affects emergency service staff too. Even though they visit
road crashes regularly, the impact of what they find when they
arrive on the scene isn’t lessened by familiarity.
KFRS’s Head of community Safety, Stuart Skilton, explained the
purpose of the project: “We attend around 1,200 road traffic
collisions each year, that’s 25 per cent more than the number of
house fires and results in around 10 times more deaths on the roads
compared with fires. Unfortunately, if you are going to get hurt
anywhere in Kent, statistically, it is a sad fact that it will be
more than likely on our roads.
"Young drivers are disproportionately involved in a large number
of these crashes and it's our firefighters who have to cut them and
their passengers free, so when they are badly hurt or killed, our
crews see much more than just a statistic.
"This campaign is deliberately hard-hitting but with a very
simple message that we hope raises awareness about the consequences
of reckless driving. While we would never intend to upset people,
especially those who have suffered from such a tragedy, we hope it
does shock drivers - not just younger motorists - into taking more
care on the roads. Driving involves a huge amount of trust,
responsibility and adherence to the highway code rules and
regulations, which everyone should respect every time they drive a
vehicle."
Larkfield Crew Manager Peter Colwill gave his story ...
"My own son has had two accidents and, by
his own admission, he was showing off to a girlfriend at the time.
He was lucky and was able to escape uninjured. I like to think he
has grown up since but I've been to too many crashes where others
haven't been so lucky and if this campaign makes just one driver
think more carefully about their actions then it will have
succeeded in its purpose."
Firefighter Jon Clark recalls a particularly harrowing road
traffic collision ...
"It was a young couple, all dressed up and
out for the night. She was supposed to have been driving but had a
few drinks so he drove instead. It turns out that he'd also been
drinking though and they crashed.
"She was talking at one point but it was
clear that she was in a bad way because she'd not been wearing a
seatbelt and her head had hit the windscreen. They got her to
hospital but she died a few hours later.
"All I could think about was the police
officer knocking at her parents' door to tell them what had
happened to their daughter. I've seen lots of injuries and lots of
crashes, but being a parent myself, it's not the injuries which
disturb me so much as the thought that it could one day happen to
me. You think your children are just going out for a good night but
then they end up dead."
Retained Firefighter and mum Karen Rawlings puts it simply
...
"I say: slow down - better late than
dead."
The Jack and Jill campaign has been promoted through print,
broadcast and public transport media between 2008 and 2010.