Tailgating is a global problem, but in the UAE it is the major cause of road accidents and it’s on the rise. Aggressive driving is a common occurrence on UAE roads. Dubai Police records show that in the last year, more than 43,200 accidents took place due to drivers not keeping a safe distance between vehicles

“In Dubai, there was a 40% rise in the number of deaths resulting from tailgating last year” – Colonel Saif Al Mazrouei, May 2014.

With over 30% involving taxis, the Roads and Transport Authority briefed us to come up with a solution.

Taxi driver tailgating incidents fell from an average of 264 to 62 per day, resulting in a 426% reduction in tailgating occurrences.

Recorded public motorist tailgating incidents fell from an average of 58 per day to 16, resulting in a 363% reduction in tailgating occurrences.

Back off radio has successfully delivered 32 440 warning messages to date.

This has lead to an overall reduction of tailgating related accidents of 14.8% in the first quarter of 2015.

The campaign has creating 360 million media impressions generating over $1million of earned media spend.

We installed Back Off Radio devices across the RTA’s franchised taxi fleet, ARN gave us access to multiple radio channels targeting the multiple nationalities living in the UAE. Sensors mounted to the front and rear bumper are triggered when either the taxi or motorist drive to close to the car in front. Our safety message is triggered and activates the driver of the offending car to slow down and give more space between them and the car in front. Translated and broadcast in the main languages spoken in the UAE we targeted all drivers when it was needed most.

The simple fact is that although there are numerous traditional advertising campaigns for road safety in the UAE, they largely go unnoticed or are easily forgotten from the time you see it to the act of driving.

Radio is the most popular form of in-car entertainment in the UAE. ARN (The Arabian Radio Network) are the largest radio network in the UAE with the broadest coverage across the multiple nationalities living in the country.

This guided us to our solution. Change driver behavior directly at the moment when they are committing the offence.