Bedfordshire saying it with flowers

‘Flowers at the roadside’ - a campaign devised and implemented by Bedfordshire County Council earlier this year - has been acclaimed in the national press across the UK and has even been debated in Canada’s leading newspaper, the Toronto Star.

"We launched Flowers at the roadside in February 2002 by placing three separate bunches of flowers about 100 metres apart at various roadside locations," explains Bill Brady (pictured below), Bedfordshire’s road safety manager. "We chose locations on straight roads well ahead of known crash locations in an attempt to warn drivers of the impending danger.

"After the flowers we placed a poster saying ‘Have YOU got the message yet?’. Then when the flowers died we replaced the poster with another that read ‘Not only flowers DIE at the roadside’".

The campaign was featured in three live satellite TV broadcasts - two on Anglia and one on the BBC Breakfast programme - on one occasion face to face with the RAC. "We received congratulations from viewers in France, Spain and the Midlands," Bill continues. "We also made our local press and the Mail on Sunday, News of the World and other Sunday papers."

Radio interviews followed with various local stations, Radio 5 Live, Radio London and Radio Lincoln. The television programme ‘Police, Camera, Action’ has also filmed a sequence to be shown in the next series and as previously mentioned the Canadian press has also shown interest. "The campaign cost less than £2,000 and only a handful of adverse comments have been received – none of these from people living in areas where the campaign took place," Bill concludes. "At the beginning even the police were sceptical but now everyone thinks that the impact has been worth it from an educational point of view." Further information about Flowers by the roadside can be obtained from Bill Brady via email at BradyWA@deed.bedfordshire.gov.uk.

The campaign is also featured on the Toronto Star website at: http://www.thestar.ca, in the weekly section entitled ‘Wheels’.