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MULTIMAP.COM
PROFILE
19 August 2004
”Make Time for a Break”, Multimap and the Department for Transport Warn Bank Holidaymakers
Multimap joins the THINK! campaign to increase awareness of potential dangers of tiredness on the roads, in build-up
to August Bank Holiday traffic.
Multimap, Europe's leading online mapping company, will host online adverts designed to boost awareness of the
dangers of tiredness among UK drivers, in the expected surge in traffic volumes over the August Bank Holiday weekend.
Banners featuring advice to drivers to make time for a break every two hours link directly to the www.thinkroadsafety.gov.uk
site. The creative banners will rotate on www.multimap.com over the holiday period, alerting a potential audience of some
7.3 million unique users to the dangers of driving while tired, and offering useful tips on how to minimise the risks.
The Department for Transport research estimates that 300 people are killed and many more are seriously
injured every year because of driver tiredness. Key findings also reveal:
Driver tiredness accounts for an estimated 20% of accidents on motorways and similar roads, and as many as one in ten crashes on all of Britain’s roads could be linked to driver sleepiness.
Sleep-related vehicle crashes are more likely to result in serious injury, because a sleeping driver doesn’t brake when danger appears.
Driving between midnight and 6am presents a particular risk, as it is when your ‘body clock’ is in a natural trough. There is another, smaller, trough between about 2pm and 4pm.
Alcohol and drugs (including some medicines) can make you more tired without you realising it.
Tips on how to keep safe on the ‘THINK! Road Safety’ web site include:
To reduce the risk of driver sleepiness on long journeys, plan your trip to include a 15-minute break every two hours.
Stopping in a safe place (not the hard shoulder of the motorway) and drinking two cups of coffee or a high-caffeine drink, followed by a 15-minute nap (while the caffeine kicks in) is an effective way of combating tiredness. It will make very little difference to your journey time.
Don’t start your journey tired. Beware of the risks if you get up unusually early to start your trip, or have a long journey back at the end of your holiday.
If you’re feeling sleepy, opening the window for fresh air or turning up the radio are of very limited benefit and may be sufficient only to keep you going a short time while you find a safe place for a break.
Keeping safe on long journeys isn’t just about staying awake. Make sure that everyone in the car is wearing a seatbelt, or appropriate child restraint, and cut down on distractions by turning your mobile phone to voicemail, or switching it off.
Mimi Parsons, advertising sales manager, Multimap, commented, “We are delighted to participate in this
immensely worthwhile campaign. We provide maps and routes on our public site that enable users to get to their end
destination as quickly as possible, but our users’ safety is, naturally, more important to us than their speed. To this end,
we decided to offer this branding opportunity to the Department for Transport. By running the campaign on
the site, we will significantly boost awareness of the dangers of driving while tired, and hope to significantly reduce the
number of accidents that have this as a root cause.”
About Multimap.com
Multimap.com is Europe's leading provider of mapping and location-based services. The company delivers more online
maps, point-to-point driving directions and geo-spatial ("where's my nearest?") searches to more companies than any other
supplier in Europe. All services are offered on WAP, PDA, kiosk, and interactive TV platforms and in multiple languages.
The public web site www.multimap.com provides a range of free, useful services to assist with everyday life.
Key features include street-level maps of Europe, USA, Canada and Australia; road maps of the world; door-to-door travel
directions; aerial photographs; weather forecasts; links to location information; and services such as hotel, restaurant
and entertainment booking. The public site attracts over 7.3 million unique users, registers more than 140 million page
impressions every month, and is one of the top 10 most visited web sites in the UK. Multimap recently came 27th in The
Sunday Times' Tech Track 100 league table of fastest-growing companies.
About the THINK! Road Safety campaign
For further information on any of the THINK! road safety campaigns visit www.thinkroadsafety.gov.uk
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