In the late 1990s, despite having an excellent new car assessment program (ANCAP) and a Used Car Safety Rating program which assesses vehicles safety performance in the real world, very few car buyers in Australia were aware that information was available to help assess a vehicle’s safety performance. Even if consumers were aware of the information, compared with Europe and the US, choosing a vehicle with good safety performance usually meant buying an expensive import.

In 2000, the Transport Accident Commission in Victoria, Australia, noting European estimates of reductions that could be expected in road trauma if the safety of the vehicle fleet could be substantially improved, made a decision to invest heavily in a public education (demand led) approach to improving vehicle safety. Off the back of the development of a searchable website on vehicle safety, the TAC launched the howsafeisyourcar.com.au public education campaign – which urged car buyers to consider safety as their number one criteria when purchasing their next car. The campaign including TV and radio ads, print, on-line and outdoor media, has been successful in it’s aim of increasing consumer knowledge about vehicle safety and encouraging manufacturers to make safer vehicles available to the Australian market. This paper will map the development of this campaign and present the results of Victoria’s consumer led approach to vehicle safety.