P-platers get the message

The majority of NSW drivers can rest assured, we're not wiggling our little pinkies at you.

The target of the RTA's Speeding: No One Thinks Big Of You road safety campaign is aimed at young drivers, who were involved in about 20 per cent of all road deaths in NSW last year.

Too many young drivers, especially men, think they are invincible, but in reality youthful over-confidence and inexperience can be a deadly mix for the most junior motorists.

NSW's road toll is the lowest it has been since World War II. But 96 people lost their lives last year in P-plate accidents, up 30 per cent on the year before. The statistics are alarming; 34 per cent of all speeding drivers involved in fatal crashes between 2002 and 2006 were aged between 17 and 25.

P-plate drivers make up only 7 per cent of all licence holders, but they account for more than 30 per cent of all high-range speeding fines issued.

And 85 per cent of all drivers involved in fatal speeding accidents in NSW are male.

The challenge is how to get through to a savvy generation which is growing up faster than ever and which is bombarded by graphic media.

In the little pinkie campaign, the RTA wanted to avoid the more traditional “shock-horror” speeding campaign, with research suggesting young drivers in 2007 are becoming desensitised to these images.

More than 500,000 people have downloaded the pinkie ad off the internet from the RTA website and, perhaps more importantly, from key youth websites like MySpace and YouTube.

One young driver told the RTA: “The thought of being ribbed by your mates is much more relevant than the thought of crashing your car. I'm going to put dirt on my mate the next time he's speeding like that!”

They might not listen when I say speeding is the biggest killer on NSW roads, costing about 200 lives every year. But they will hopefully start listening to their mate, or their girlfriend, telling them to slow down and stop being stupid.