National campaign to promote road safety to launch on World Health Day

The South African Breweries is the sponsor of the driver-education campaign, due to be launched at the World Health Day Commemoration Event on April 7 in Moloto Village, Thembisile Municipality, Mpumalanga Province.

The sponsorship is part of the company's commitment to ensuring responsible alcohol consumption, and will be run under the banner of "Drink Responsibly, Drive Responsibly, Live Responsibly".

However, the campaign recognizes that road safety issues in South Africa go much further than just "drinking and driving" and therefore include messages about speeding, road worthiness, drinking and driving, safety belts, visibility and pedestrians. The long term goal of the campaign is to encourage a cultural change amongst South African drivers to make a difference to the country's unacceptably high road accident statistics.

Half a million road safety pamphlets are being produced that will be distributed throughout the country with the help of SAB's sales managers. The pamphlets will also be distributed to motorists at key traffic light intersections on World Health Day in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban and Cape Town. A further 200,000 will be distributed to the trade.

Newspaper advertisements will be placed in the Sowetan, the Star, the Pretoria News, Beeld, Cape Argus, Die Burger, Daily News, Daily Dispatch, The Herald, the Daily Sun and the Citizen.

Radio advertisements will run from 5 April and will be carried on RSG, 5FM, Metro FM, Highveld, Jacaranda, YFM, KFM, East Coast, Ukhozi and Umhlobo Wenene. Advertisements have been translated into Zulu, Xhosa and Afrikaans.

SAB will also run an outdoor billboard campaign for the month of April in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban and in the Northern Province.

SAB's communications manager, Michael Farr, said that the advertisements would carry six key messages to promote road safety. These include: