NZTA applauds Vodafone's road safety texting initiative

The NZ Transport Agency welcomes and applauds Vodafone's texting innovation to improve safety on the country's roads.

“Texting while driving became illegal two years ago but it remains a significant and unwelcome cause of too many crashes, so it’s great to see Vodafone’s initiative giving people another option to make a safe choice when they are travelling,” says the NZTA’s Chief Executive, Geoff Dangerfield.

Vodafone’s DriveSafe service is free, and it blocks a text message sent to a driver and lets the sender know that person is on the road and unable to respond.

“Nobody is perfect and it is easy to get distracted when driving, so this innovation will help people stay safe,” Mr Dangerfield says.

Mr Dangerfield says DriveSafe is a good fit with the Government’s Safer Journeys vision of a safe road system increasingly free of death and serious injuries.

“New Zealand’s Safe System approach means that the community has a shared responsibility for making roads safer. Everyone has a part to play – not just policy makers and planners, but the private sector too, including the telecommunications industry.

“The NZTA encourages all Vodafone customers to subscribe to DriveSafe and to use it. But we hope this sort of innovation does not stop with one company. Telecommunications has a huge base of customers who use texting to stay in touch. Expanding an innovation similar to DriveSafe can only have a positive impact on safer journeys for all of us,” Mr Dangerfield says.

More details of DriveSafe are available on www.vodafone.co.nz.

Other websites with information relating to safer journeys include:-

Safer Journeys Strategy: www.saferjourneys.govt.nz
Vehicles: www.rightcar.govt.nz, www.ancap.com.au
Highways: www.kiwirap.co.nz
Users: www.practice.co.nz, www.rideforever.co.nz, www.scootersurvival.co.nz, www.bikewise.co.nz