'Sometimes, the best way to get something done is by ducking through the back door rather than storming the front gates. That’s exactly what the Abu Dhabi Police did this week in their ongoing initiative to improve road safety.

 

If you haven’t heard – and chances are you haven’t – the Abu Dhabi Police earned the Guinness World Record Achievement for Road Safety Awareness on Monday (check out the story on page 16).

The goal was to get 3,000 people to attend a lecture on road safety that included a series of videos – some emotionally compelling, some humorous and some capturing graphic scenes of traffic devastation from actual film footage.

What the Abu Dhabi Police didn’t mention was that nearly all the participants were Emirati boys between the ages of middle school and university. Throughout the event, the participants were keenly interested in the presentation, their emotions evident through their gasps, chatter and cheers.

Turns out the Abu Dhabi Police’s real motivation in organising the event was to get all these boys excited about joining them on a mission, boys who have lost too many of their friends to truly tragic traffic accidents, boys who can never un-see the gripping images the videos portrayed.

Instead of a publicity stunt, the quest for the world record was a subtle strategy that worked beautifully. The Abu Dhabi Police could not have found a better way to drive their message home, and we at Abu Dhabi Week would just like to say job well done - you made a difference

Laura Fulton