Columbian capital launches new drink driving campaign

Officials in Bogotá, Colombia have initiated a strong mass media campaign aimed at reducing drink driving, a frequent cause of road crashes in the Colombian capital. With support from Vital Strategies and the Bloomberg Philanthropies Initiative for Global Road Safety (BIGRS), the city’s campaign will remind motorists of the great danger, both to themselves and others, caused by drink driving. Last year, 447 road crashes occurred in Bogotá, an increase from 427 in 2014, mainly due to drink driving. So f
October 5, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
Officials in Bogotá, Colombia have initiated a strong mass media campaign aimed at reducing drink driving, a frequent cause of road crashes in the Colombian capital. With support from Vital Strategies and the Bloomberg Philanthropies Initiative for Global Road Safety (BIGRS), the city’s campaign will remind motorists of the great danger, both to themselves and others, caused by drink driving.
 
Last year, 447 road crashes occurred in Bogotá, an increase from 427 in 2014, mainly due to drink driving. So far this year, 271 road crashes have taken place, with 14 percent resulting in fatalities and 49 percent in injuries. Weekends account for roughly 70 percent of weekly drink driving-related road crashes in the city, with young men being an overwhelming majority of violators.

Because this is such a significant public health issue, the city plans to merge enforcement of Colombia’s broad drink driving laws with this campaign to cut the prevalence of this significant road crash risk factor.
 
Bogotá will use television, radio and social media to promote the campaign, which will run through October. It is part of a global, 10 city program spearheaded by BIGRS and coordinated by Vital Strategies to reduce road crashes in major cities around the world.

Enforcement

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