Opotiki A&P Show visitors experienced a ‘pop up' theatrical, song and dance show, which conveyed serious road safety messages aimed at young drivers.

The ‘no rewind' event is part of an innovative new Eastern Bay of Plenty Road Safety Committee campaign that encourages young drivers to realise that ‘real life has no rewind' and to ‘plan ahead to get home safe'.

A road safety campaign in the Eastern Bay is aimed at reducing serious crashes. File photo.

The campaign uses the familiar control buttons from a mobile phone to reinforce key messages, such as (Play button) Plan your sober driver, ‘(Play button) Plan to party close to home' and ‘(Eject button) Don't let a drunk drive you'.

Opotiki College Year 12 and 13 students were involved in designing the campaign messaging.

Eastern Bay Road Safety Committee Chairperson, Haki McRoberts, says it's important to involve young people in the campaign design as they are our emerging drivers and a key target audience.

He says the younger generation is over represented in Eastern Bay crash statistics.

'A greater proportion of crashes were recorded for drivers at fault aged between 15-19 years and 20-29.

'Many of these crashes were alcohol, drug and speed related.”

The NZ Transport Agency's ‘Communities at Risk register' records all death and serious harm accidents from around New Zealand and evaluates risk per 100 motor vehicle kilometres travelled.

For the period 2008-12, the Opotiki district was ranked as the second highest risk area, when compared against the 72 other territorial authorities from around New Zealand.

Haki says the pop up theatre and dance show is a fresh way to communicate with young people.

The event also includes video interviews, a driving simulator, ‘Booze goggles' demonstrations, ‘car wreck art' and free wifi.

'The event is designed to be entertaining, first and foremost. We also wanted to give our audience the chance to try some hands on driving and to express how they felt, in video, through art and on social media, about the show and their own driving experiences.

'We need to encourage our young drivers to talk and think about the driving decisions they are making, and help them make good plans to stay safe,” says Haki.

More ‘pop up' events will be held during March and the Eastern Bay of Plenty Road Safety Committee members encourage people to get onto Facebook to find out more about being part of these events.