The Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) has launched a new campaign urging drivers who tailgate other road users to ‘back off’.
This week has seen the not for profit representative body for the personal injury launch the campaign through the use mainly of their social media platforms with a Facebook page in place to gather support for the initiative as well as the release of a short film explaining to people the dangers of tailgating.
On Twitter APIL have told their 3,317 followers that there are 77 cars on each kilometre of road within the UK, which is 79% more than the European Union average.
The campaign comes in the wake of the government’s announcement to raise the fine amounts for careless driving such as tailgating as well as bring in fixed penalty points for those drivers who do ignore rules of the road. It was also revealed in an article published by the Daily Mail that Tailgating was the main cause of road rage incidents, so it is little wonder that APIL are keen to attack the problem head on.
Speaking about the motivation for the campaign, APIL CEO, Deborah Evan says: “Tailgating can result in crashes and injuries which could otherwise have been avoided. All it achieves is suffering for the driver in front and probably a higher insurance premium for the offender. We are simply asking motorists to back off.
“Even putting aside the fact that tailgating is dangerous, it can be intimidating for the driver in front. It would be completely unacceptable for someone to stride closely behind you in a shop or to breathe down your neck in a queue, yet it’s almost tolerated on the road.
“Driving closely behind others should be as socially unacceptable as not wearing a seat belt. It is also utterly futile as you won’t get anywhere any quicker anyway.”
You can watch APIL‘s short film about tailgating here and support their campaign by visiting their Facebook page.
Image source(s)
1. APIL; https://www.apil.org.uk/