18 February 2024 Edinburgh: The new work features images of idle thoughts disappearing like ghosts, only to be brought back to reality with a bang.
‘Keep Your Mind on the Road’ is the latest campaign from the Scottish Government created by Leith and aimed at all road users.
It’s easy for our thoughts to drift from the immediate world around us to the trivialities of the office, what’s for dinner and catching up with friends.
But, as the hard-hitting new work created by Leith for the Scottish government shows, it only takes a split second of distraction to result in a serious accident.
The campaign urges all road users – but particularly drivers, who pose the greatest risk to others – to keep their minds on the road at all times.
The road is a shared space that both drivers and pedestrians need to look out for each other to safely reach their destination.
After car users, pedestrians represent the second largest category of casualties (939 in 2023). This constitutes over one in six (16%; 939 out of 5,788). Five per cent were fatal (47 out of 939) and 46% were seriously injured (429 out of 939).[1]
The new set of images, digital assets, 30” radio ads and a 30” hero film all show a deceptively quiet road, seemingly devoid of any potential hazards. The film then tells us that “It’s easy to go into our own world” and shows us both a man pushing a small child in a pushchair cheerily concluding a phone conversation as he crosses the road and a female van driver in a world of her own listening to music. What looks like an inevitable collision is thankfully avoided as they both snap out of their distracted states simultaneously. It is clear that even a momentary lapse of concentration from either could have been disastrous.
The still images and digital assets reinforce that even a split second of distraction from a driver or a passenger can be deadly, with faded repeated phrases such as ‘deadline, deadline, deadline’ concluding suddenly with a bold ‘dogwalker’. The radio ads demonstrate how even a conversation with yourself over something as innocuous as what the family is having for tea that night can lead to disaster: “Josh is fussy with lentils. I don’t know, these are fussy *screech of brakes* KID!”
The Scottish Government set out a vision in 2021 for Scotland to have the best road safety performance in the world by 2030, and zero fatalities and serious injuries on Scotland’s roads by 2050 The journey to achieving this vision includes the number of people being killed or seriously injured on our roads halving by 2030.
[1] Key RRCS 2023. Key Reported Road Casualties Scotland 2023 (transport.gov.scot)
Shelagh Considine for the Scottish government added: “The message to all road users is clear – we all have a duty of responsibility to others. The campaign highlights that it is imperative we are always 100% aware of our surroundings, however briefly our minds may wander or however seemingly safe the road looks. It only takes a second for tragedy to strike.”
Richard Thomson at Leith said, “We’re incredibly proud of this new work and think that the simplicity of the messaging combined with the jarring consequences create a memorable campaign which in a very real sense conveys how it takes just a moment to create a life or death situation.”
