Toyota Motor Corporation will begin its 48th annual autumn Toyota Traffic Safety Campaign1 by launching a new traffic safety awareness project named the City Firefly Project. The project will begin on September 6 in Aichi Prefecture, and then across all Toyota dealerships nationwide from September 21.
In line with contributing to the ultimate goal of achieving zero traffic fatalities and zero traffic accidents, Toyota has implemented automobile safety measures as one of its top priority management concerns. In late May this year, Toyota had launched a new installment under the company's corporate communication campaign, "WHAT WOWS YOU.", which is led by its vision of creating the "Wow (moving experiences and affinity)" factor for people around the world. Traffic Safety is one of the themes within this campaign, alongside sports and technology.
Over the years, Toyota has been conducting activities which have been designed to educate the general public on traffic safety, as part of its efforts to create awareness on automobile safety. These include, conducting safe driving workshops to emphasize on the importance of safe driving, as well as traffic safety school events which are aimed at young children and their guardians.
Termed the City Firefly Project, this name for this year's campaign has been derived from Toyota's desire to brighten dark streets in order to prevent accidents from occurring. The project will consist of measures to ensure pedestrian safety particularly in the evening and at night, where incidences of accidents are relatively higher. These measures include, the promotion of the use of high-beam headlights when driving2, which helps to illuminate more distant areas in comparison with the use of low beam headlights. This has the effect of helping to widen the driver's field of vision. Another measure is to encourage pedestrians to wear gear that is made of reflective materials, which will help drivers to identify them easily. Unique mascots (as shown below) will be used on the new website, and will be printed on fliers, reflective materials, and pamphlets which are used to raise awareness, that will also be distributed by dealers. These will hopefully promote these measures to a wider audience, so that they become altogether effective.
Furthermore, for thirteen consecutive years, Aichi Prefecture has had the highest rate of traffic fatalities in Japan. As such, ten Nagoya-based media companies3 have come together to work towards the goal of making the prefecture's roads safer, under the banner of the "AICHI: No Longer the Worst" project, which had begun on August 2. Toyota supports the theme of this project, and will also be participating in it.
In addition to distributing fliers, reflective materials, and pamphlets that will help raise awareness for the City Firefly Project, Toyota will also begin airing television and radio commercials in Japan from September 7 onwards. Furthermore, Toyota will also hold events in which participants can directly experience the effectiveness of driving with high beam headlights as well as wearing gear that are made of reflective materials on aiding traffic safety. These internal and external events will be held at stadiums where Nagoya Grampus matches have been hosted at, such as the All Toyota Friendly Fiesta which have been created by Toyota and Toyota dealership employees.
