Toyota (GB) PLC and the British Red Cross, have teamed up for the third year running to launch ‘Don’t be a Bystander’, the nationwide road safety campaign which aims to deliver life saving skills and awareness about first aid to 100,000 children and young people this summer. The campaign, backed by Blue Peter presenter Konnie Huq, launched yesterday to coincide with the start of United Nations Global Road Safety Week.

In 2005, 3,472 children were killed or injured on the roads in Britain1. Toyota and the British Red Cross is targeting 9 to 13 year olds to help reduce road deaths within this vulnerable age group.
Throughout the summer, local British Red Cross staff and volunteers will visit schools and hold free public road shows in shopping centres, theme parks, town squares and festivals, where children and young people will have the opportunity to learn how to stay safe and basic life saving skills. They will focus on five simple steps to roadside first aid:

• Stop! You can help
• Stay safe and keep calm
• Keep the casualty breathing
• Stop bleeding
• Call 999

Toyota GB’s Marketing Director, Mark Hall said: “Toyota is committed to minimising accidents and injuries and we constantly improve the safety features of our vehicles. This British Red Cross campaign complements that effort by recognising the importance of basic first aid skills should an incident occur. Toyota is very pleased to develop its long standing partnership with the British Red Cross to give first aid training to young people.”

Red Cross ambassador and TV presenter Konnie Huq said: “Central to the campaign is the message – ‘Don’t be a Bystander. Be someone. Learn first aid’. We want to encourage as many young people as possible to act at the scene of a road crash and use their basic first aid knowledge to help save lives.”

‘Don’t be a Bystander’ is in its third and final year, which, by the end of summer 2007, will have trained over 250,000 young people with first aid skills. To celebrate this, Toyota has designed a special, one off version of its Aygo car. The ‘Aygo Safely’, designed in the style of a distinctive first aid box, will be travelling the country and appearing at road shows this summer to help raise awareness of the campaign.

To find out more about ‘Don’t be a Bystander’ and to see what events are happening in your area visit www.redcross.org.uk/roadsafety.