Wokingham

Responsible driving saves lives – and the For My Girlfriend (FMG) campaign has been bringing this message home to young drivers in the Wokingham Borough since 2005.

This year the Wokingham campaign, which will peak in the run up to St Valentine’s Day, asks young people to ‘take responsibility when driving’ and brings home graphically the potentially terrible consequences for drivers and passengers when things go wrong.

Wokingham Borough’s youngsters will see posters showing a team of fire fighters and paramedics attempting to free a girl from a crashed car with the headline: ‘If you don’t want to see this many blokes around your girl…take responsibility when driving’.

Valentine cards will be distributed to schools, pubs and clubs and other places popular with young people. The cards look romantic on the outside, but inside carry the campaign’s hard-hitting message.

Executive member for community safety Cllr Barrie Patman says: “Through this hard-hitting campaign we are reminding young people of the terrible dangers and consequences when things go wrong on the road. More young females aged 17-19 years are killed or seriously injured while travelling as passengers in cars than as drivers, so at this romantic time of year we are using the FMG campaign to ask young male drivers to take special care of their female passengers – and to point out the particular dangers that young girls face as passengers.”

Wokingham Borough Council