Guide to community campaigning

Maybe you have been affected by a road crash and want to remember and honour a loved one by doing something positive. Or maybe you are aware of particular road dangers, risking the lives of you, family members or others, and you want to prevent a crash. Keep your motive in mind, so you can:

• explain it to others, by telling your story
• stay on track if things get hard

Campaigning often requires perseverance, team building, diplomacy, stamina and, most of all, hope. Your efforts are important and valuable.

Sadly, some people may disagree with you. Things may take longer than you expect. Make a commitment to keep going. Have a plan, take things at a sensible speed, build support, and work to achievable goals. This is much better than rushing at things and getting disheartened.

If you need help and encouragement at any time, talk to others helping you, or get in touch with Brake.

This may sound easy. But the way you communicate your campaign will determine whether other people support it and get involved. Your campaign should:

• be easy to understand, with simple messages about the problem you are tackling.
• be collaborative. Anyone and everyone can support your campaign and offer their ideas.
• have benefits for people, that can also be easily understood.
• be achievable, even if this is in stepping-stone stages, and over a long time. There are examples of other communities that have achieved what you are calling for.
• not set you up to fail, typically by calling for something very specific that is rarely achieved (and that might not be the best solution) or calling for something to happen too fast.

Here are examples of campaigns that could be successful:

• On My Street, we will feel safer and be able to walk and cycle without fear.
• On My Rural Road, we will have slower traffic.
• Young people in My Town will know about Brake and raise funds for the charity.
• My community, including my MP and other stakeholders, will be backing a Brake national campaign I promote locally.

Here are examples of campaigns that are unlikely to succeed:

• Speed humps will be built on My Street by the end of next year.
• On My Rural Road, there will be a bus service every 20 minutes by the end of next year.
• There will be no more crashes involving young drivers in My Town.
• A new law will be passed by next year banning old cars with poor crash protection.

It is sustainable, and enjoyable, to campaign with others. Safe and healthy streets should matter to us all, and road danger is often a major fear of local people. Get busy reaching out; and see how other people can be part of your team, either in a committee you set up, or more loosely.

• People around you. This could be family, friends, people on your street, people in your workplace or clubs or forums you belong to, in your community or online.
• Local government. Your local council surveys roads and organises most road changes, from cycle paths and traffic restriction measures, to speed limits and cameras.
• Community organisations. Employers, schools, and community-focussed organisations can support your campaign and enable you to talk about it to groups of people.
• Police. Police enforce traffic regulations and organise community speed watches. They also attend crashes, and their family liaison officers provide help to people bereaved in crashes.
• Professionals in post-crash roles. Emergency doctors, ambulance workers, coroners, funeral directors, and personal injury lawyers, can all speak out about the impact of road casualties.
• Special interest organisations. Brake is one. As a Brake campaigner, you can ask us for research and practical examples to support your campaign. You may also want to join groups promoting rights of people walking and cycling, or groups campaigning to prevent injuries.
• Media. Local media and online community forums (local and national) are a powerful mechanism for change. You can also aim high and take your campaign to the national media.
• Your MP, councillor, or mayor. Their job is to hear your local or national concerns and address them.

Our tips on working with others:

• Listen out for facts and learnings that others hold. Ask questions, and question answers.
• Find out skills and time other people can offer; and what they want to do, and assign tasks.
• Identify disagreements. Seek common ground based on shared values and hopes.

Accept some people may never want to help. Don’t waste your time on convincing them

It is important to have information that supports your campaign, and that people will find influential. Here are some kinds of information used by road safety campaigners, that you can seek to collect:

• academic research supporting what you are campaigning for (why it leads to safe and healthy streets) and examples of implementation of a particular road safety campaign that has already worked. Browse our knowledge centre and campaigns.
• local or national road casualty data, broken down in relevant ways, for example by road type, road user, or crash type. Go to the government’s road casualty data download tool. You can also use the free CrashMap tool to get information about crashes on roads near you.
• case studies of crashes relevant to your campaign, including first person stories from victims. This could include you telling your story, or another local story you have permission to tell, or is in the public domain (the media).
• surveys of local roads and traffic, run by your council, police, or by you. Surveys can show traffic volume and type, speed and driver behaviour (such as drivers running red lights or using hand-held mobile phones).
• surveys of local people identifying:
  • how they feel about their streets. Do they feel safe or scared? Do they find their local streets enjoyable places where they are able to walk, cycle, chat, sit, and play?
  • how they get about, and why. Do they choose to drive because they are scared to cycle?
• surveys of children and young people. Take a look at our sample ‘hands-up’ surveys for 5-11 year-olds and 11-18 year-olds, for use in schools.
• expert local opinions and quotes that support your campaign, such as from road safety practitioners, teachers, emergency service employees, and hospital doctors.

Talk in your team to work out the strongest information to use to support your campaign. Ask your most important partners, for example your local council, MP and journalists, or an audience you plan to address, what they would like to know.

If you need help collecting information, get in touch with us for advice.

Here are some common oppositions that road safety campaigners often face, and how to answer them calmly and positively.

You are told: an engineering improvement or lower speed limit “can’t be done”, because it doesn’t meet “guidelines”, or there has “not been a casualty”.

Your response: Ask to see any guidelines that are quoted, so you can compare them with guidelines followed in areas where your campaign objective has been implemented successfully. Explain it is inhumane to wait for lives to be sacrificed before making improvements that are proven to work.

You are told: a campaign goal is “too expensive” or there is “no money” to fund it.

Your response: What is money being spent on instead, and is there evidence this expenditure is more likely to lead to safe and healthy streets? What other sources of finance might be possible to obtain?

You are told: What you want will “not achieve anything”.

Your response: Show them your evidence (and if your evidence is weak, find more evidence, or change your campaign.)

You are told: What you want is “not fair on motorists”.

Your response: Motorists are also parents, cyclists, pedestrians. We all use roads in different ways, and all deserve the same safe road systems and traffic laws.

Many road safety campaigners working for a change to their streets get results through

• close collaboration with decision makers who can implement changes sought
• speaking out, positively, in the media and with the help of politicians, about what needs to be done
• a combination of the two!

Tips on collaborating with decision makers

• Be clear that you want to work with others, not work against them, but are here to get results
• Keep logs of when you email or phone decision makers
• Keep a record of everything you send, and replies you get
• Talk to the top. If you aren’t getting the answers you expect, ask to talk to someone else, higher up, or in a more relevant department
• Copy in your supporters, particularly if they are influential, such as your MP, or the police
• Offer to speak at meetings, or to help gathering local opinions or doing surveys
• Use people in your team who are good at public speaking or writing letters

Tips on speaking out

• Talk to the media. If you have a strong campaign, they should listen. Use our guide to media coverage.
• Talk to your MP, mayor or councillors. They are required to listen to you.
• Keep trying. If the media or your political representatives don’t seem interested, try again, in a different way.
• Start a petition, or a social media platform that rallies supporters.
• Use your strongest allies to provide supportive quotes or letters; for example the police, or a hospital emergency doctor. This provides legitimacy to what you are doing.
• Get kids involved; children and young people are fantastic advocates and can convey messages in simple ways that demand to be listened to.

Remember to stay positive in your messaging. Road safety is for everyone’s benefit.