Road safety driven home

The big-eyed, brightly coloured car parked at the Albany marina is there to catch your attention and remind you about something that could save your life.

There is another one at the Albany Leisure and Aquatic Centre and the students who painted them want to make people rethink driving under the influence.

It is a simple message, but an important one, especially for the Year 8 to 12s, who took out the paintbrushes while thinking about the driver’s licence they would soon have.

A painted car is not the typical vehicle for a road safety message, but hundreds of people have already noticed it.

Co-ordinator Tom Dimer thinks the cars could be working.

Mr Dimer is the Aboriginal prevention officer at Palmerston. Tasked with making the road safety campaign happen, he brought together more than 20 students from Alta-1 and North Albany Senior High School.

He said the community needed to think of a different way to grab attention and share the lifesaving message.

“With the young people, they don’t sit down and listen to people just talking and talking — some of that stuff goes over their heads,” he said.

“The best way to do it was to actually get them to paint the messages themselves on the cars. On the cars are mainly messages regarding drink-driving and being under the influences of alcohol or other drugs while driving, as well as the different distractions within a car that might take your attention and cause an accident.”