Vehicle Maintenance Campaign (evaluation report)

This evaluation report concluded that a campaign to raise awareness of the importance of vehicle maintenance achieved its aim.

The campaign was developed and delivered by the Bedfordshire and Luton Casualty Reduction Partnership in conjunction with a number of private sector partners and Bedfordshire Police. It was designed to raise drivers’ awareness of the importance of vehicle maintenance and the legal consequences of driving a defective vehicle.

The campaign ran in two parts during September and October 2013.

The first part comprised a series of events at supermarkets at which people were offered free vehicle maintenance checks provided by the local road safety team and specialists from local automotive companies.

In the second part of the campaign, police stopped drivers across Bedfordshire to check for vehicle defects. If defects were found, the driver was given advice on maintenance and 14 days to rectify any faults under the Vehicle Defect Rectification Scheme (VDRS).

In all, 282 drivers were engaged through the campaign – 143 at supermarket events and 139 stopped by the police.

266 participants completed the campaign survey, with 94% claiming they have their vehicles checked regularly. However, despite this, a significant number of defects were found during the campaign.

When asked about future behaviour, 98.6% of the participants from supermarket events said they would act on the advice given, but this figure dropped to 90.3% of those stopped by the police.