Stop, imagine, change - Tom Brake MP supports Road Safety Week campaign

8.15.54pm GMT Sun 9th Nov 2008

Tom Brake, MP for Carshalton and Wallington is joining the road safety charity, coincidentally named Brake, and bereaved families across the UK in a Road Safety Week campaign urging the public to Stop. Imagine. Change.

Families whose lives have been shattered by horrendous crashes are holding protests at twelve regional launches to plead with people across the UK to stop and imagine the shock waves caused in a community when someone dies or is severely maimed, and change their behaviour so they never cause such common devastation to their own family or someone else's.

Road Safety Week is also supported by the Department for Transport and headline sponsors 3M, DHL, MASS (the Motor Accident Solicitors Society) and Kwik Fit Insurance. They will also reveal shocking new research, compiled by Brake and its sponsors. [Full survey results published on www.roadsafetyweek.org.uk on Wednesday 12 November.]

Tom : "I am right behind the Stop. Imagine. Change. Campaign. We must all be extra vigilant when driving and take every possible measure to protect the ones we love and prevent the devastation that would change their lives forever."

Mary Williams OBE, chief executive of Brake, the road safety charity behind the Week, said: "Most of us worry about a loved one being killed on the road, but we also think it will happen to somebody else and not our family. The 'Stop. Imagine. Change.' campaign is a wake-up call that one in 252 people die on roads; children, young adults just starting out, mums and dads, and beloved grandparents - and each death sends out crippling shock waves in communities. We all need to take a moment daily to think of the reality of road death and injury, take a hard, cold look at our behaviour on roads and improve it, for the sake of our own loved ones and others, whether that's by slowing down, not overtaking, switching off our mobiles, belting up our children in child seats, or holding their hands. Stop. Imagine. Change."