You might have seen these unbelievable videos – a person running across a railroad track, just escaping certain death by millimetres. Yes, we’ve all come across at least some of them. You just hold your breath and hope for the train to miss. For a very near miss. Just like the people escaping fatal injuries.

However, there’s one side of these ‘misses’ that usually remains unspoken of. How do the train drivers cope with such a miss? One might think that they are calmly sitting in the safety of their cabin, right? Unfortunately, that’s just not true. Every day in New Zealand, a train driver suffers a near miss. Yes, exactly: suffers!

Every near miss has an impact on the train drivers. They do too fear for the person’s life. So, for this year’s Rail Safety Week, DDB New Zealand, KiwiRail, and TrackSAFE NZ decided it was time to remember the hundreds of near misses train drivers witness every year. By installing the Near Miss Memorials at rail crossings, the companies want to remind travellers to cross with care. Otherwise, it might be them with a Near Miss cross being erected somewhere along the tracks… In a better scenario when they manage to escape the speeding train.

Rail Safety Week is an annual community awareness week which is held in Australia and New Zealand and designed to engage the community in safe rail practices. Every year the countries witness thousands of near hits and trespass incidents, fatalities on the network, as well as illegal behaviour at level crossings and on, or around trains. These incredibly dangerous acts all too often end in tragedy, and when they don’t there’s no one to remind people that “Every near miss has an impact.”

The campaign features a symbol of a near miss – a half cross. These unusual memorials represent just how close each near miss could have been to a fatality and were installed at rail crossings around New Zealand where near misses have occurred. Each ‘half cross’ comes with a QR code which when scanned links to a unique video of a real near-miss and personal story of how it impacted the train driver: “In the memory of Woman in a Hoodie…”  The symbol of a half cross represents just how close each near miss could have been to a fatality.

The interactive installations come with a two-minute spot called ‘Near Miss Memorials’ which introduces the real-life misses at train tracks and acts as a stark visual reminder for Kiwis to take caution when crossing railway tracks. Most importantly, the spot shows interviews from New Zealand train drivers who suffer the psychological trauma as well. In case you won’t make it ‘Down Under’ and can’t view the installations in person, you can watch every near miss film at nearmisses.co.nz through an explorable 3D rail journey.

Ellie Martel, Group General Manager Communications at KiwiRail, uncovers the reasons why the spotlight lies on the drivers: “This year we wanted to turn the campaign focus to those inside the train to help the public understand the trauma for our locomotive engineers (drivers) , as well as for other rail staff, witnesses and of course the pedestrian or motorist involved. We hope this approach will encourage people to change their behaviour and be more vigilant around level crossings.”

The safety campaign was launched at the country’s Parliament, following shocking statistics revealing that everyday train drivers in New Zealand come close to a near miss with pedestrians and vehicles at level crossings, despite all crossings featuring some form of protection, including flashing lights, warning bells, barrier arms, gates, and signage.

Justin Mowday, the CEO at DDB NZ, shares the creative agency views: “We are really proud of this campaign. It’s uncomfortable, confronting and real. It puts you in the shoes of the real Kiwis at the frontline who experience this every day. The near miss memorials have been established in a bid to get Kiwis re-thinking how and when they cross at level crossings.”

The campaign has rolled out last week across social, web, print, OOH, radio and near miss memorial installations at level crossings nationwide. Let’s hope there won’t be more crosses, be their half-ones or actual ones…

Credits:

Client:
Kate Thompson, Community Engagement Manager, KiwiRail
Megan Drayton, Foundation Manager, TrackSAFE NZ

Agency: DDB New Zealand

CCO: Damon Stapleton
ECD: Gary Steele
Creative Directors: Brett Colliver & Mike Felix
Senior Creatives: Adam Barnes & James O’Sullivan
Account Service: James Blair, Rebecca Farlow, Anna Hall
Planner: Annika Fyfe
Print Production: Julz Lane
Digital Production: Johannes Gertz, Jason Vertongen, Danillo Castilho, James Li
Video Production: Judy Thompson, Amanda Summersby, Dan Cummings, Milon Williams, Mark Tretheway
Photographer: Mat Baker
Retoucher: Carl Baker

Media: OMD