Road to Zero campaign: vision

We have a vision - Zero deaths on our roads by 2050.

Imagine an Aotearoa New Zealand where everyone can get where they’re going safely. Where it’s safe to drive to work and home again, to go on a summer holiday roadie or visit whānau. Where it’s safe to ride bikes and let tamariki walk to school.

This is our vision for Aotearoa New Zealand. It’s time we stop accepting people will be killed and seriously injured on our roads.

Road to Zero – NZ’s road safety strategy

Newspaper wrap

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The campaign

On 23 February 2022, the second stage of the Road to Zero public awareness campaign launched with a big “0” on the front cover of every major newspaper in New Zealand, to reinforce the message of the need to strive towards zero deaths and serious injuries on our roads. 

A comprehensive nationwide promotional programme supports the campaign. This includes social media, digital, print marketing and media partnerships.

You can learn more about the first stage of the campaign here:

Road to Zero campaign: Booth

The target audience

The Road to Zero campaign targets all New Zealanders. This is because road safety affects everyone, and we all need to stop accepting that it’s okay for people to be killed and seriously injured on our roads.

Our approach

The Road to Zero campaign is a public awareness campaign that aims to increase awareness and understanding for Road to Zero, New Zealand’s road safety strategy.

There are three stages to the campaign:

• Disrupt: We address complacent attitudes to road safety – it’s time we stopped paying the road toll. We want to reduce deaths and serious injuries on our roads. Our plan to get there is Road to Zero. 
  

  Road to Zero campaign: Booth

• Vision: We explain our vision of zero deaths and serious injuries on New Zealand roads by 2050. It might seem aspirational but zero is the only acceptable number. Vision is part of this stage.
• System: We demonstrate the Safe System and how all the different parts of the road system work together to keep us safe. We all have a part to play - It takes everyone to get to no one.
  Road to Zero campaign: System

Costs

The budget for the Road to Zero public awareness campaign is approximately $4.74 million. This includes the production and media costs for two TV advertisements as well as the production and media costs for all other supporting assets including radio, digital, social media, print media and out of home media. The campaign is supporting a much larger Government investment of $2.9 billion in road safety activities over the next three years, including $1.2 billion for road policing.

To put the investment in this campaign in context, the average social cost* of one fatal road crash in New Zealand is $5.37 million, with the average cost of a serious injury crash estimated at just over $1 million. At current casualty rates of over 300 deaths and more than 2,000 serious injuries per year, the annual social cost of road crashes to New Zealand is nearly $5 billion.

*Road crashes impose intangible, financial and economic costs to society. These costs include reduced quality of life for survivors; reduced economic productivity; and medical and other resource costs. The Ministry of Transport calculates the current average social cost of a fatal crash at an estimated $5.37 million, and $1,005,000 per reported serious crash.

Social cost of road crashes and injuries(external link)