Roadie Runner!

• 25th Oct 2006

Roadie Runner

A virtual rock band roadie is the latest recruit in the campaign to tackle global road deaths.

The Make Roads Safe campaign and rock band Dirty Pretty Things are launching a new online virtual game to raise awareness about the impact of road deaths around the world and build support for the campaign. ‘Roadie Runner’ (at link ) sees a Dirty Pretty Things roadie trying to retrieve musical instruments by crossing a five lane highway – with often fatal results.

The game is intended to be a fun way to get across a serious message to a high risk audience – young men – that can be difficult to reach through conventional road safety messages. Players are encouraged to join the Make Roads Safe campaign, and key facts about global road deaths are displayed throughout the game.

Road crashes are the number one killer of young people in the UK, Europe and the US.

Worldwide, only HIV/AIDS kills more young men than road crashes.

Make Roads Safe Campaign Coordinator Saul Billingsley said: “We recognise that this kind of treatment of road safety issues might be controversial. But the Make Roads Safe campaign is being innovative in the way political awareness about road safety is communicated, working with Dirty Pretty Things on their UK national tour this winter and using social networking online, including MySpace and YouTube, to connect with people in their teens and twenties. The Roadie Runner game will help us to put across serious road safety facts through a fun medium to a potentially massive youth audience online”.

Dirty Pretty Things guitarist Anthony Rossamondo said: “We need to do more to highlight the fact that 1.2 million people are needlessly killed on the roads around the world each year. This is why Dirty Pretty Things are supporting the Make Roads Safe campaign.”

www.roadierunner.com