Public Awareness

Out on the Road

Thanks to many hard-hitting campaigns that have made us laugh, cry, feel an uncomfortable, sinking feeling in the pit of our stomach, or simply birthed an “A-ha!” moment in our consciousness, the culture of road safety is going stronger than ever today.

To understand the process through which said campaigns are crystallised, we had a chance to speak with

Communications Coordinator at Kunhadi, a Lebanese NGO that is absolutely restless about spreading awareness and implementing policies to improve road safety.

“Back in 2008, we launched a campaign that portrayed irresponsible civilians who put others’ lives at risk with their reckless driving as donkeys,” Abdouny mentioned, under titles such as “Are You Out of Your Mind?” The campaign, as offensive as it might have seemed to a lot of people, sparked outrage, but set the standard for shock-advertising at the time, popularising the use startling imagery and concepts in advertising to get a message across. “But now, we really want to stress on setting an informational tone with our campaigning.”

By Kunhadis’ standards, shocking people is no longer cool. Causing uproars is not the only thing that would boost the collective consciousness’ understanding of road safety. Making the initiative to address such issues back in a time when the general public was accustomed to

Abdouny,

May

while driving, driving under fatigue, and riding motorcycles without helmets,” says Abdouny. Every once in a while, each campaign addresses one or several of such issues.

Social media is one of the most prominent platforms for each road safety