Page 40 - Operation Lifesaver Estonia / Annual Report 2012

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tragic collisions, fatalities and injuries at highway-rail grade crossings and on railroad rights of way.

Founded in Estonia on 19 November 2004 -

www.ole.ee

In 2011 Operation Lifesaver Estonia and NPO

Aerobike Cycling Agency started their water project

during which bottled water with railway safety

labels was distributed at bicycling competitions.

The objective of the campaign was making bicyclists

act safer while crossing railways.

As the start of the project was a success and the

goals set require continuous and long-term work,

we decided to continue our activities also in 2012.

Similarly to the previous season, we continued with

reasonable intensity in order to not put too much

pressure on people and cause the risk of negative

reaction. Although we continued our main activity,

which is distributing drinking water to thirsty people,

we also made the overall image of the campaign

more integral. In order to bring our message out

better, we added advertising banners with OLE logos

in the centre of the competitions, placing them

nearby the area where water was distributed. OLE’s

logo was also included in the printed materials

and it was displayed on competition posters. All of

that allowed us to reach more people with even a

smaller quantity of water.

If we talk about numbers then in last season OLE’s

bottled water was given out at 14 ACA bicycle

competitions: 7stages of the Filter Road Cup,6 stages

of the Filter Tempo Cup and Fakto Auto’s Tallinn

People’s Tournament. It is also worth mentioning

that the route of the People’s Tournament crosses

twice the Tallinn-Narva railway line, which has the

highest traffic density in Estonia. More important

than the number of competitions is the size of our

target group, meaning the number of bicyclists

participating in the contests. If we leave aside

repeated participation by the same contestant then

we had in the Filter Road Cup we had 1291, Filter

Tempo Cup 442 and Tallinn People’s Tournament

617 competitors. In addition to these numbers we

have the kids who participated in the races for

children. Thus, it can be said that the number of

bicyclists has increased considerably compared to

the previous years and we have also succeeded in

growing our audience.

As already mentioned, changing people’s habits and

way of thinking is a long-term process that requires

continuous educating throughout many years. The

latter is particularly true in case of bicyclists who

have not been addressed as extensively as the

pedestrians. It might be a bit to early to talk about

the results of the project but we can still talk about

some of the effects after the two-year period. We

can assess the visibility of our efforts on the basis

of the feedback we receive and in that respect the

year 2012 showed some very good results. We have

seen many signs that our project has been noticed

and well received by the contestants.

One of our contestants posted on Facebook:

”During

Changing people’s habits and way

of thinking is a long-term process

that requires continuous educating

throughout many years.

Mihkel Reile

NPO Aerobike Cycling Agency,

Member of Management Board