Walk Safe in Kent

The Walk Safe campaign was launched by the road safety team at Kent Highway Services in February around Maidstone. The campaign aimed to make pedestrians – especially younger ones – take out earphones and put away their mobile phones while walking near traffic and crossing the road.

It used a mixture of large roadside boards, bus advertising and A4 posters to target areas in Maidstone where there is a lot of pedestrian movement. The posters were primarily used in schools to target students, who often walk to and from school listening to music, or using their phones.

Following the success of the Walk safe in Maidstone campaign we promoted the second part of our 'Ipod / Distractions' campaign throughout April and May targeting the entire county by each district.

The campaign started on 30th March with bus advertising in four districts, Dover, Tunbridge Wells, Tonbridge and Malling, Sevenoaks, Gravesham and Dartford. A fortnight later the campaign continued in Folkestone, Thanet, Swale, Canterbury and Ashford.

Pedestrian Road Safety Officer for Kent Highway Services, Darren Cook, said:

“It’s very easy for people to become distracted by MP3 players and mobile phones, so they’re not paying attention to the traffic around and pedestrians can be hard to spot, especially younger and smaller pedestrians. We hope that the bus advertising and posters will make people switch off their gadgets and switch on their attention to help keep themselves safe.”

Darren Cook (01233 614115)