An Unhelmeted Motorcyclist Not Holding Both Handlebars - A Photographic Idea for Education Presented as an Initial Scoping Study

Abstract

Introduction: Road safety campaigns in Australia typically have simple, hit home messages with captions overlaid on photos. The Australian stop, revive, survive campaign is well-known, with accompanying photos displaying red fatigued eyes with the words; tired eyes, yawning, driver fatigue: wake up to the signs. Otherwise, the stop, revive, survive is shown with a windy road ahead viewed through a dashboard.

Objectives: The aim of this project was to create a helmet safety message utilising a photograph along with several text words alongside.

Methods: A photograph taken by Stephen Hilton of a motorcyclist with no helmet, holding one handlebar, was utilised with the words;‘Helmet, Handlebars, Headlights’ overlaid above along with arrows. This safety design was shown to forty persons, in order to obtain brief feedback and comments on whether this had the potential to convey the message about the need for a helmet in particular. The comments were gathered, collated and then common themes were identified.

Results and Discussion: Five emerging themes were identified that included; The message is simple and straight to the point, cultural awareness is required, the need to enforce it as law, motor cycle riders think they are invincible and finally respondents were unsure whether it would work. A word cloud was created capturing and highlighting the main words stated in larger font, while words used infrequently were displayed in smaller font.

Conclusion: More than half of the respondents questioned thought the idea was simple, straight to the point and hence should work.