The Department of Transport's publicity campaigns are designed to influence attitudes and behaviour of road users, particularly drivers, as well as providing a focus for collaboration with the police, local Road Safety Officers and many other organisations in both the public and the private sector who directly promote road safety. The campaigns also publicise and reinforce legislative changes, such as the new laws on rear seat belts. Their underlying objective is to support the Government's target to reduce all road casualties by one third by the year 2000, a target set in 1987, based on the average number of casualties between 1981-1985. The campaigns are developed with professional advice from a leading advertising agency in cooperation with campaign planning teams made up of interested organisations, including Local Authority Road Safety Officers and the police. The greater part of the Department's current publicity programme is directed towards two of the most serious road safety problems: inappropriate speed, with special emphasis on child road safety, and drinking and driving, and about 5 million pounds of the 6.5 million pound publicity budget is spent on these two areas.
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