Safer Roads Leeds belongs to Leeds City Council’s Influencing Travel Behaviour (ITB) team. We decided that we needed our own space and identity, a.k.a @SaferRoadsLeeds, which means that we are able to identify our target audience and reach those that we really want to with our tweets. Using Twitter enables us to use our personalities to engage with people and to take part in conversations in order to get our messages out there and to the right audience. Bingo!

The ITB team focuses on promoting and supporting safe and sustainable travel choices throughout Leeds. We work closely with schools, community groups, businesses and other partners such as the Police and Fire Service. Our work is important in developing key road safety skills for our children, as well as working with other vulnerable road users to keep them safe whilst out and about, through education, training and publicity. We also encourage and support all road users to choose sustainable travel, whether the journey is to school, to work or for leisure.

Using social media is a popular way of sharing key messages with a wider audience.  These messages may trigger people to make small changes which they had not realised they needed to  e.g. slowing down in adverse weather conditions or looking out more carefully during the school holidays when more children are out and about. Being part of the twitter community provides instant, up-to-date messages which often offer links to information. It also allows for reader interaction, plus it’s free.

Our aim is to open up the world of road safety and sustainable travel, to let people see what work we do other than digging up roads (which of course isn’t always us), or gritting streets in winter. Our team wants engagement with the public, we want to know what we can do to support community safety and promote safe and sustainable transport, which can enhance the health and wellbeing of your family and wider social networks.

Our place on Twitter is essential for what we do. In these times of saving money, social media is seen as a great alternative where we can improve communication between ‘everyone’ (yes, that’s a lot of people) who plays a role in keeping our localities a safe place to live and be part of. So it makes sense that we utilise this opportunity not only to shout about what we do but also to promote campaigns via tweeting or retweeting and to share information with others who have the same motive.

Our tweets are simple – they range from updates about what we are getting up to, to random (but important) musings about current and significant information regarding ways to keep safe whilst out and about on our roads, no matter how you choose to travel.