SETU students’ powerful letter wins road safety prize

A ROAD safety initiative led by University of Limerick and An Garda Síochána has seen third-level students highlight the deadly consequences of speeding.

More than 1,000 students across higher level education institutes in Ireland engaged in the project as part of the ESB-sponsored Road Safety Reimagined initiative.

Now in its fourth year, Road Policing Division, Road Safety Reimagined seeks to harness the collective power of students by encouraging them to submit marketing campaigns in promotion of road safety.

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This year’s event saw top submissions from more than 1,000 students.

With engaging submissions centring upon the power of the passenger to speak up against speeding and how fatalities have a ripple effect across entire communities, it was a poignant concept developed around childhood grief that claimed the overall winning prize.

Produced by South East Technological University (SETU) students Harry Watkins, Patryk Pawlak, Stephen Sokiri, Andrei Bors, and Kasey Mulhearne, the poster was designed to resemble a crumpled piece of paper featuring a young child’s scrawling handwriting.

Artfully conceived of as a letter to their deceased sibling, the words in red crayon read: ‘Dear brother, it’s been three years since the crash. I miss you.’

Dr Christina O’Connor, Associate Professor in Marketing at UL’s Kemmy Business School said: “It is empowering to see our young people work with An Garda Síochána to tackle the dangers of speeding on our roads through creative and outside the box thinking.”

Sergeant Tony Miniter described this year’s winning submission as “road safety advertising at its best”.

“The winning poster had such a strong emotional impact on me and resonated with my own experience of seeing the loss that is experienced by families when a loved one gets killed on our roads.”

“Speeding is a major factor in far too many of these fatalities.”