Global eyes on Victoria as TAC YouTube hits top 30 million

01 Jun 2015

Global interest in Victoria's efforts to reduce road trauma has helped the Transport Accident Commission YouTube channel reach more than 30 million views.

The TAC passed the milestone on the weekend, less than six years after it began posting to the popular video sharing site in 2009.

TAC Chief Executive Officer Janet Dore said the organisation had embraced online platforms including YouTube, Facebook and Twitter in order to bring its road safety message to a broader audience.

Australian viewers accounted for less than 30 per cent (8,75 million) of the 30,027,000 views on the TACVictoria YouTube channel between November 2009 and the beginning of this week.

Viewers in the United States were responsible for more than 7 million views, followed by Brazil at 3.5 million, Canada at 2.75 million and the United Kingdom, with more than 1 million.

"The TAC is widely seen as a world leader when it comes to educating drivers on road safety but it has still been surprising to see the amount of overseas interest in our campaigns," Ms Dore said.

"We see that as an endorsement of the level of innovation and creativity that has gone into our efforts to change driver behaviour and reduce road trauma over the past several decades."

When it comes to YouTube hits, Victoria's TAC campaigns have outperformed those of other road safety organisations both in Australia and abroad. United Kingdom road safety organisation THINK came closest with 15.8m views, followed by New Zealand Transport Agency with 13.3 million.

"There is no doubt our campaigns have had an enormous impact on Victorians' attitudes to road safety and I think that is reflected in the major decreases in road fatalities since we began our public education activities in 1989," Ms Dore said.

"It is pleasing to think that those campaigns have now gone global and to some extent will play an influential role in the way other jurisdictions work to reduce road trauma."

The most successful of the 619 videos posted to the TACVictoria channel is a confronting video montage looking at the first 20 years of TAC campaigns. It attracted more than 18 million views.

Other popular campaign videos included the 'Reconstruction' anti speeding ad, with more than 820,000 views and a motorcycle campaign with more than 720,000 views.

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