I'm going back home! is a project developed by us, a group of students of SESI High School of Dois Vizinhos - PR Brazil. The main idea of this project is to promote the awareness of drivers who have risky behaviors that increase the statistics of traffic accidents on the roads, of the southwest of the State of Panamá.
The ideas
Dois Vizinhos - town located in the southwest of the state of Paraná has approximately 40 thousand inhabitants and it is the national capital of the "chicken", being the headquarters of one of the largest slaughterhouses in the world and the largest in Latin America (BRF - Company) in poultry slaughter with a high movement of trucks and small cars in the highways of the region. Based on this information, through a brainstorming, we suggested going to the Paraná Police State Highway and obtaining the information through a management report on the number of accidents, injuries and deaths in the area of the 6th Highway Police in the cities of: Mariópolis. , Palmas, Chopinzinho, Francisco Beltrão and Realeza. Since the approximate total of inhabitants of these 5 cities is of 264 thousand inhabitants, the numbers of the reported accidents are alarming. In 2017 there were 757 accidents with 53 dead people and 699 injured persons. In 2018, even though the number of accidents was slightly lower, 737, the rate of death and injuries was higher, respectively, 81 and 729 persons. Until March of 2019, there was already 163 accidents that caused 24 deaths and 215 injured people.
After choosing the topic of the project, we decided that we should raise awareness of these people who have behaviors that not only are against the law but also put the others' lives at risk. Some of these risk behaviors are: drinking alcohol and driving on highways, overtaking at dangerous places, using the cell phone, not wearing seatbelts.
The initiatives
“I'm going back home!” is the name of our awareness campaign!
We decided to organize a theater in the street staging an accident in which the driver would be drunk. For this event we also made stickers to put on the drivers’ cars, we created posters with awareness slogan and also leaflets to give to people and drivers passing by the place in which our event would take place.
We managed to get a car that was involved in an accident for the staging since we though this element would get people's attention and crate an impact that would help to transmit our message, We asked permission for the authorities to make this mobilization in the street, we requested the support of the police and traffic agents to guarantee that no incident would take place.
We chose for our event the day before Mother's day in Brazil, since it would be a busy day in town. Even though it was raining this day, we kept our organization, we arrived very early in the square to prepare everything, soon arrived the winch with the car struck. We place the car in a strategic location, where cars passing by could see the project.
The receptivity of the project was surprisingly good, several people went by and stopped to look, so we started the scene with the staging of a dead person to really shock the drivers. We managed to make the motorists to drive slowly to see the performance and that was our big goal, to have people reflecting on their actions in transit.
Participation in the project gave us the possibility to conclude that we live in a country that is the 5th in the world with the highest number of victims in traffic accidents. Advises like "wear the seat belt", or "if you drink, don't drive" may seem like truisms, but a good deal of these accidents could be avoided by adopting some simple behaviors. Participating in this project also cheered our souls and made us think that we can save lives by avoiding risky behaviors. So, our slogan "I'm going back home" safe aims to remind people that prevent accidents doesn't mean to make sacrifices but only follow the laws and that would be enough.
