Road Safety Officers from Local Authorities across the North West, Midlands and North East of the country have joined forces to launch the very first TikTok Mic Drop Road Safety competition.
Held in conjunction with iRadio, the TikTok Mic Drop is putting the spotlight on all age groups and their capacity to deliver a positive message to their peers and the wider community to communicate the importance of safe road user behaviour to ultimately save lives.
The competition invites participants to create their own song or rap, focussing on sharing the road safely and upload this on to TikTok, tagging iRadio and mentioning their Local Authority.
In 2020 we regrettably saw a rise in the number of pedestrians killed on Irish roads, up 19% on 2019.
We also saw increases in the number of cyclist and motorcyclist fatalities, up 25% and 6% respectively. This campaign wants to change this trend.
We want to empower people to have conversations with their friends about making safe choices when they use the road. Entrants for the road safety competition are asked to focus on sharing the road with other road users whether they are motorists, cyclists, horse riders, motorcyclists or pedestrians.
This innovative challenge is being promoted by ten Local Authorities (Donegal, Cavan, Kildare, Leitrim, Mayo, Monaghan, Laois, Longford, Sligo and Westmeath) in partnership with iRadio with a prize fund of €5,000.
There are individual prizes of €1,000 for the four best entries and one spot prize of €1,000 which will be awarded to the best entry submitted by a school, sports team, club or community group. (Please adhere to Covid19 guidelines when recording.)
While competing for the prize, video-makers will be able to highlight some of the most important road safety issues affecting their area, in regards to respect and courtesy on the roads and pinpoint key ways that improvements can be made which will benefit the local community.
Brian O’Donnell, Donegal County Council Road Safety Officer said: “A road safety video made by a young person will resonate deeply with their peers and send a strong message about the importance of staying safe on our roads.
“We believe that the iRadio TikTok Mic Drop video competition will attract participation from students in primary, secondary schools, colleges and even mature residents of our Counties can come on board with this road safety initiative. The videos submitted for the contest will play an important role in educating everyone and help promote road safety.”
iRadio CEO Mark Cunning said, ”We are delighted to be involved with so many of the County Councils in our region. Over the years we’ve had to air far too many stories on iRadio about the loss of young lives on our roads.
“There is a difference between talking to young people and talking at them. It is great to see such forward-thinking from our Local Authority Road Safety Officers. Our aim is to educate through entertainment and interaction and I am really looking forward to seeing the user, generate content from this initiative.”
The mechanic to enter this competition is through TikTok, and the listener must share their creation on their own platform and tag/mention @Thisisiradio and use their County’s hashtag. TikTok Mic Drop starts on iRadio on March 8th.