In Lancashire, Blackpool and Fylde Crime Reduction partnerships launched a new Nightsafe bus campaign to raise awareness about alcohol related harm.
Following in the footsteps or bus route of the original ‘Walk away’ bus that featured local model Rachel Hall on the back and the message "Hi boys! I’d rather have a laugh with you than see you in stitches" the new bus features one of the eye-catching posters from the new ‘alcohol masks the real you campaign’, addressing the problem of alcohol consumption leading to incidents of violent crime.
Inspector Keith Ogle heads the police leg of the Nightsafe team. He says: “The message that after drinking too much we can become someone we wouldn’t recognise when sober, is not only being displayed on the rear of the bus, but on the four themed posters that are displayed on the internal advertising boards on fifty of the Fylde’s buses, giving food for thought not only to passengers but also to the drivers in vehicles following the bus, on a route which has been carefully chosen because it goes from Fleetwood to Lytham and by-passes may of the Fylde’s schools and colleges.
“One of the key messages of the current campaign however, is that alcohol harm is not the exclusive premise of the young teenage binge drinker. We are now seeing that the effects of drinking to excess impacts on all generations and also on the children of middle-aged people, who find that, without realising, they have become a victim of having just a few glasses of wine or cans of lager to alleviate the stress of a busy and stressful life and are ending up as alcoholics or suffering from health related problems as a result of drinking to excess.
