In 1987 the Department of Transport began a co-ordinated programme of road safety publicity. The aim of this approach was to provide all Local Authorities and Police Forces in Great Britain with advice, guidance and support to enable them to run effective local campaigns in relation to a national schedule of publicity priorities. This report describes surveys carried out between 1989 and 1990 to assess how effectively local road safety agencies were implementing the programme and what impact they had on public awareness. A high level of satisfaction with Deparment of Transport advice and guidance was reported by both Local Authorities and Police Forces. Co-ordination at inter-department and inter-agency level was good and regional liaison meetings were regarded as very important. Not all campaigns coincided with the national schedule and some resource and timing difficulties may have contributed to this. Evaluation of a selection of local conspicuity and drink drive campaigns indicated that their impact was generally very low, in contrast to the high impact of campaigns benefitting from national TV advertising. However, when seen local conspicuity campaigns did have some influence on knowledge and attitudes. (A)
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