MEDIA INFORMATION:
Wednesday 30 January 2007

“Bring back Clunk-Click every trip,” says NEWCARNET.co.uk

Twenty-five years after wearing a seatbelt became law in the UK, motoring website NEWCARNET.co.uk is calling for celebrities to endorse road safety in the same way that Sir Jimmy Saville backed the “Clunk-Click” campaign of the 1970s and 80s.

The call follows NEWCARNET.co.uk’s research that says nearly 4 million motorists still don’t use the most basic of safety devices – the humble seatbelt – on UK roads.

It was 1971 when top Radio 1 DJ Sir Jimmy first told us we should make a routine to “clunk the door and click the seatbelt,” every time we get in a car. “Clunk-Click, every trip” became engrained in the minds of UK motorists and helped bring car seatbelt wear rates to around 90% by the early 1990s.

Other celebrities of the 70s, such as Alvin Stardust and Kevin Keegan, promoted the “Be Smart, Be Safe,” message, while former Doctor Who Jon Pertwee brought us the memorable slogan “SPLINK” to help children cross the road.*

No such campaigns were used when seatbelt laws were tightened for delivery drivers in 2005, however, and NEWCARNET.co.uk’s research suggests an estimated 1.4 million people driving vans, some half of the total on the UK’s roads, still don’t wear a belt, in addition to 2.4 million car drivers.

“With people more obsessed with celebrities than ever, why isn’t the government using them to change people’s attitudes the way they did 30 years ago?” says NEWCARNET.co.uk’s Massimo Pini.

“Manufacturers have spent millions of pounds making new cars safer than ever, but the government still needs to put the effort in to change attitudes, and lives, of  everyone who uses the UK’s roads.”

You can watch Sir Jimmy, Kevin Keegan and Jon Pertwee’s road safety films at www.newcarnet.co.uk/roadsafety.

Notes

* - “SPLINK” stands for:

First find a
Safe place to cross, then Stop on the
Pavement near the kerb.
Look all around for traffic, and Listen.
If traffic is coming, let it pass. When there is
No traffic Near, walk straight across the road.
Keep looking and listening for traffic while you cross.

- Wearing a seatbelt in the front seat of a car became law in the UK on 31 January 1983.

- An estimated 6,000 deaths and 400,000 injuries could be prevented across Europe each year if everyone wore a seatbelt

- Greece is Europe’s worst country for seatbelt wear, with just 40% of drivers passengers using them, Germany is Europe’s best, with 94% of drivers belting up.

- In 2005, it became law for all delivery drivers to wear a seatbelt, unless completing door-to-door deliveries of 50m or less. Despite this, research by NEWCARNET.co.uk shows that 47.3%, or 1.4 million of the UK’s van drivers, don’t wear a belt. This compares to 8.7%, or 2.4 million, car drivers.

- The original Clunk-Click videos featured characters such as “clunkers” (those who “clunk” the door but don’t “click” the seatbelt) and “Mr Blunders,” the type of idiotic driver who’ll catch out even the best drivers on the roads.

- The last time “Clunk-Click” was used in a UK road safety video was 1993.

ENDS

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NEWCARNET.co.uk was launched in 1997 as the definitive independent UK new car buyer’s guide and has since gone on to become the premier online provider of automotive content in the UK with a recipient list that includes: Yahoo!, Times Online, Virgin Media, Orange, Tiscali and Auto Trader. The website itself is accessed by around 160,000 users every month generating over 2 million page impressions.