WHY PUBLIC AWARENESS?

Over the past 30 years, the number of officers killed in automobile crashes has jumped by 40 percent while the number shot to death during that period has declined by about the same amount.

Alarming figures. Can public awareness can make a difference? When is it effective? When is it not?

The Police Protective Fund asked some fundamental questions before committing time and resources to its public awareness campaign — “PROCEED WITH CAUTION”.

Is a “Call to Action” an effective way to address the problem at hand?

Clearly raising public awareness regarding broad world issues like “Save the Whale” or “Free Tibet” is ineffective.

Careless motorists striking public safety responders are another matter. This is a crisis that all
Click to view. but evaporates with even a slight concession to caution and courtesy. Reviewing the police reports makes one thing clear: these are split-second tragedies — a slight elevation of awareness can be the difference between life and death.

But this new level of awareness must be widespread to have impact. We didn’t just want to raise awareness about a problem. We wanted to help fix the problem.

One factor weighing in favor of a public awareness solution is the majority of these fatal incidents [including hundreds of crippling, non-lethal impacts and thousands of near-miss, drive-by brushes with death officers brave everyday] involve otherwise law abiding citizens. They could be your neighbor, someone in your family, perhaps even yourself — good folks who have picked up some bad habits.

These citizens are subject to reason — they are fertile ground for appeals to civic responsibility. Ad people talk about the “stickiness” of ideas — jargon for our ability to retain a new idea. We could reach our target audience — and there was something rational there to stick to.