Media campaigns promote driver safety for farmworkers

Abstract

During the peak harvest season from April to October, hundreds of thousands of San Joaquin Valley farmworkers commute from field to field and farm to farm, sometimes two or three times a day. Motor vehicle crashes — the largest documented cause of injuries and fatalities to farm workers — increase dramatically at this time. To educate farm-worker families about motor vehicle safety, we designed a program called ¡Maneje Seguro! (Drive Safely!). Its centerpiece was a game, La Loteria del Manejo Seguro, based on a bingo-like game popular in Mexico (known simply as La Loteria). We disseminated safe-driving information by featuring the game in weekly bilingual newspapers and Spanish radio and TV station. Assessments suggest that media campaigns had favorable impact on farmworker knowledge, awareness and, to some degree, driving behavior.