Keep Driving Safely

The Keep Driving Safely project was proposed to TFfE by the Helen Hamlyn Centre (HHC) which is part of the Royal College of Art (RCA), London. The aim was to develop a communications campaign on road safety targeted at elderly drivers.

The RCA is the world’s only postgraduate art and design institution. As part of the RCA the Helen Hamlyn Centre undertakes practical research and inclusive design projects with industry. To begin this project a researcher conducted face-to-face interviews with drivers over the age of 55. They then investigated accident statistics for the elderly and existing road safety campaigns aimed at this community.

The research found that whilst older people generally make safer drivers, skills for safe driving start to deteriorate around the age of 55. Older drivers have more difficulty judging distances to other objects on the road and processing a wide range of information simultaneously. They also have slower reaction times, and a deterioration of physical strength, flexibility and dexterity. Many older drivers also take medication but have no awareness of its possible effects on driving.

One of the surprising findings was that elderly drivers are often aware of the effect of aging on their driving ability. However, they tend to delay changes to their driving behaviour despite this awareness.

The project established a working group including HHC, Toyota and Help the Aged, a UK-based not-for-project organisation. The working group discussed the research results, exchanged ideas for the key messages and distribution strategies. Help the Aged brought very valuable insights to the project as they have considerable expertise in communicating with elderly people. A series of ten posters and advertisements were developed which feature messages that are posed as questions, such as “Do you really need to drive in bad light?”. The main issues identified during the research are covered by the different posters.

The project was presented and launched during the London Design Festival in September 2007. Over 1,000 doctors, pharmacists and community groups received copies of the posters. Toyota GB has featured the poster in the magazine distributed to the customers. The project will be expanded to other countries in the future.