Big Green Coach & CADD (Campaign Against Drink Driving) collab on safer festival travel campaign
Trusted organisations join forces on anti drink, drug and mobile phone driving awareness
Carbon neutral transport solutions company Big Green Coach, is utilising its platform as the UK’s largest and most sustainable events travel company, to spread the CADD (Campaign against drink driving) message around festivals and live events.
The organisations will collaborate to raise awareness with both festival goers and their parents that taking the coach is the safer, and most affordable way to travel to and from live events; championing the CADD message of ‘prevention rather than cure’.
CADD was set up over 40 years ago following the deaths of children of the co-founders at the hands of drink drivers. It has evolved over time and is now the ‘sister charity’ to SCARD, (Support and Care After Road Death and Injury). CADD highlights the dangers of drink and drug driving and joins in many campaigns to get the message across that drink and drug driving are not, (and should never be), acceptable.
CADD has long campaigned for tougher sentencing for drink and drug driving, and for a reduction in the accepted ‘drink drive limit’ which is the highest in the developed world. They advocate the “safe limit”, as opposed to the “legal limit”, that being Zero alcohol in a drivers’ system. Its original message was that not nearly enough was being done to prevent other people becoming the innocent victims of drinking drivers and that existing policies and penalties in relation to drinking drivers, especially those who killed or injured others, did not adequately reflect the true nature of the offence.
CADD were involved in the judicial review and encouraged the implementation of recent changes to Sentencing guidelines. The maximum sentence for causing death or injury whilst under the influence of alcohol or drugs was recently increased from 14 years to life imprisonment. CADD encouraged victim families to launch private prosecutions on death charges to ensure justice for lost loved ones. Every prosecution launched was successful, which proved beyond doubt that prosecuting authorities was not bringing proper charges.
John Scruby, a Trustee and media spokesperson for CADD commented:
“To share the CADD messages against drink and drug driving with the Big Green Coach customers is a no brainer. It is so important to continue to remind festival goers to plan their public transport in advance. Coach is the common sense option as the timings are tailored to the event so there’s no leaving early or making last minute decisions about how you are getting home.
“Planning is so important to travel safety — if you are planning on drinking alcohol or taking drugs, be honest with yourself and make sure you get your public transport organised. Remember that being the designated driver is a huge responsibility and it will take some time for substances to leave your body. Prevention is better than cure, and we encourage parents to get involved when their children are planning their festivals and live events tickets.”
Danny Newby, who co founded Big Green Coach 15 years ago with Kevin Green added:
“We’ve been working closely with CADD to formulate a campaign that means we can effectively communicate the anti drink and drug driving messages with our customer base. It immediately struck us that this is about much more than drink-driving. Nowadays there is a triple threat: drink, drugs and mobile phones. Driving whilst filming on a mobile phone is the newest danger and one that we will be focusing on highlighting the dangers of.”
The carbon neutral transport company has confirmed 674.5 tonnes of carbon will be balanced for 2023 with UK charity ecolibrium, via a five figure donation to ecolibrium’s Trees+ programme. Since joining forces with ecolibrium in 2021 Big Green Coach has balanced over 1500 tonnes of carbon.
With audience travel accounting for almost 80% of carbon emissions for live events, it’s never been more important to think about travel choices. Coach travel is already the greenest option for event goers, taking cars off the road and using less land for parking.
Going further in its green efforts, Big Green Coach’s work with Cool Earth means it has now sponsored close to 2m sq.ft. of Amazon rainforest for ten years. In 2022, all of its coach services were carbon neutral. Emissions for every return trip were worked out and then offset by investing in sustainability projects with ecolibrium.
Find out more about ecolibrium http://www.ecolibrium.earth
About Big Green Coach Limited
Big Green Coach Ltd, a pioneer in sustainable transport with 15 years of industry expertise, specialises in providing official transport services for large-scale partners such as East West Rail (EWR) and Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, as well as for major UK tours with some of the biggest artists in the world and most major UK festivals. The vehicles Big Green Coach uses to deliver these services range from 8 to 100 seats. Big Green Coach prides itself on affordable, personalised service and professional drivers, offering reliable, sustainable staff and consumer transportation solutions.
The carbon-neutral transport company has confirmed that 674.5 tonnes of carbon will be balanced for 2023 with UK charity Ecolibrium via a five-figure donation to Ecolibrium’s Trees+ programme. Since joining forces with Ecolibrium in 2021, Big Green Coach has balanced over 1500 tonnes of carbon.
For further information on Big Green Coach transport solutions please contact [email protected] or visit www.biggreencoach.co.uk