Thames Valley group picks up young driver campaign

The Thames Valley Road Safety Officers’ Group has unveiled plans to implement the For my girlfriend (FMG) young driver publicity campaign that has run successfully in eastern England for the past couple of years.

Around 300,000 FMG postcards have been distributed on request to young drivers since the direct mail campaign was first launched in East Anglia in February 2002.

"There is a lot of enthusiasm for the campaign among Thames Valley authorities and we are all looking forward to the launch early in 2004," says Mark Oldfield, Buckinghamshire’s senior safer roads officer, who heads the Thames Valley FMG project team.

The Thames Valley FMG campaign will have a two-pronged approach.

First, the campaign will break in February 2004 with a direct mail programme targeting educational establishments, night clubs, leisure clubs and major employers across Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, West Berkshire, Milton Keynes, Bracknell Forest, Wokingham, Slough, Windsor & Maidenhead and Reading. Activity will focus around 14 February - Valentine’s Day - when the campaign will launch at Adams Park, the ground of Wycombe Wanderers, on the day the home team takes on Luton Town in a local derby.

The direct mail exercise will then continue throughout spring/summer 2004, along with individual activities carried out by Thames Valley Group members. A FMG website will also be created in time for the February launch, along with a Theatre in Education (TIE) production.

A second phase of activity will take place in September 2004 – to coincide with the start of the new academic year. A number of ‘events’ – probably crash scene reconstructions – will take place around the Thames Valley region to attract media attention. These events will be staged at places where young people will be present in significant numbers - typically educational establishments.