When news of COVID broke earlier this year, even before talk of lockdowns, I was beginning to get cold sweats. Whilst we have a very strong digital and film side to our business, we rely mainly on the print and distribution of over two million road safety magazines each year. And the one thing I expected to stop immediately, was the use of any physical materials that could carry and transmit the virus. Fortunately, I was wrong on two counts - the science and sentiment.
I’m no scientist, but it never dawned on me why fish and chip shops might use newspapers to wrap food. After conducting some research on the matter, it turns out that paper is actually pretty sterile, add ink into the equation and that printed paper becomes a very resilient surface. The cold sweats began to subside further after reading this article from TwoSides (www.twosides.info/UK/covid-19-and-paper). This is what one study had to say about the risks of COVID on paper:
Aside from the manufacturing conditions of paper, plus the printing and distribution processes significantly decreasing the amount of viable particles required to infect someone, the material itself is not a good location for the virus to exist. The researchers found that the coronavirus lasts longest on smooth, non-porous surfaces such as plastic. Since paper and cardboard are porous, they carry the lowest potency for the shortest period of time.
I won’t lie - knowing the science checked-out was a big relief, as I wouldn’t like to think that our magazines were contributing to the spread of this terrible virus. However, having had our first baby during lockdown part one, I knew that sensible strategic decisions were not always being made and that vital services had been suspended “due to COVID” for the most tenuous of reasons. So my next question was, would people still use print as a road safety education resource?
I’m pleased to say that unlike many services and organisations I’ve experienced this year, our wonderful community of road safety professionals did not disappoint. Perhaps because it’s made up of so many positive, innovative and reliable people who knew their work of keeping people safe of the roads was going to get harder due to COVID, which meant that more had to be done, and not less. As one RSO rightly explained to me, “young people are three times more likely to die in a car crash [stats correct at the time] than of CVOID, so we mustn’t take our eye off the ball”.
Since March we’ve been busy producing road safety awareness film for Cycling UK, Surrey Fire & Rescue Service and East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service. The Police and Crime Commissioner for Warwickshire invested in sending 40,000 copies of vulnerable road user magazines (for cyclists, older drivers and motorcyclists) out across dozens of outlets in the county. The feedback so far has been overwhelmingly positive. More people than ever are choosing the least safe methods of transport to help socially distance and older drivers are likely to stay on the roads for longer, peppered with periods of isolation, where skill-fade can occur so quickly.
Click here to read the Warwickshire VRU campaign article.
I am very thankful to everyone who has continued to invest in getting these award-winning print magazines into the hands of those who need them most - young drivers, motorcyclists, cyclists and older drivers. There are too many to list individually, but to the dozens of road safety teams who use FirstCar products and services as part of their road safety strategy, we are all very grateful.