Main Page
Introduction
Safe Vacations
Occupant Protection
Summer Travel
Ideas
Success Stories
Tell Us About It!

IDEAS

For Safe Vacations:

• Design a campaign, workshop or exhibit booth promoting "Your Safe Vacation Checklist." Encourage people to plan vacation safety just like they plan their route or their itinerary. Provide handouts and information about various summer safety programs.
• Weave a "Share the Road" theme throughout all of your public service messages over the summer. Courtesy extends to all roadway users – motorists, truckers, motorcyclists, bicyclists and pedestrians. Work with your police and sheriffs’ agencies to provide "Thank you for courteous driving" messages or giveaways at checkpoints, intersections, toll booths and/or construction sites.
• Work with service stations and car dealership service centers to promote proper car maintenance prior to vacation or other long driving trips.
• Help plan and conduct a child seat check-up clinic at the beach.

For Work Zones:

• Support your state transportation department’s work zone safety program and the national work zone safety campaign. Educate motorists and tourists via the media about the dangers to highway construction workers. Radio is an especially good outlet since people listen to the radio in the car and your message can have the most immediate impact on behavior. Arrange to have safety advocates and construction workers on talk shows to discuss the situation and what motorists can do.

For UCSSS Awareness:

• Distribute copies of the UCSSS flyer in this Program Planner to help educate your employees, clients, patients, other constituents and the general public. Incorporate the piece into all your public information efforts, especially child safety seat checkpoints and other places where you reach parents.
• Write letters to the editor of your local newspapers to explain the new system to parents and to let them know that you are a source for information on the topic.
• As soon as new seats and vehicles are available, hold a demonstration at a car dealership. Invite the media to see how easy the new system is to use. (Note: the system is phased in over the next three years; many new model cars in September 1999 will have the upper anchorage but may not yet have the lower anchorages.)

For Booster Seat Awareness:

• An educational effort at the community level can help parents and caregivers understand the need for booster seats, and fits in with the national recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Panel II. Here are some ideas:
• Hold traffic safety seminars and demonstrations at summer camps, state and county fairs, malls and other retail outlets, and community festivals. Display booster seats, educate parents and distribute consumer information (for suggestions, see Program Publications for Planner 19 in this Program Planner). Hold a raffle for a booster seat at fairs. Team up police officers and pediatric nurses in uniform to work together at information booths.
• Launch a campaign aimed at grandparents with the theme "A Booster Seat Makes a Great Gift." Publicize booster seats as a gift option through senior citizen clubs, community centers and malls (especially those with morning mall-walking programs for seniors).
• Work with pediatricians, family doctors and nurses to reach parents about the importance of booster seats. Encourage doctors to include consumer materials such as A Parent’s Guide to Booster Seats as a routine part of the annual check-up for four-year-olds (see Program Publications for Planner 19 in this Program Planner).
• At child safety seat checkpoints, ask parents about older children. Distribute booster seat information to those who have older children. Remind parents of three-year-olds that the next step, once the child reaches age four and 40 pounds, is a booster seat.
• Work with child care centers to increase awareness. Many centers offer before- and after-school care, and may even transport school-age children to and from school.

For All Modes of Travel:

• Bring the ONE DOT theme to the local level by teaming up with safety organizations and agencies representing other modes of transportation.
• Work with local travel agencies, auto clubs and hotels to help them provide relevant safety messages to their customers, regardless of traveling mode.
• Ask your state or local highway departments to add safe summer travel messages to their variable message boards on interstates and around popular tourist attractions and travel destinations.
• Distribute safety information through child care centers and summer camp mailings.