Road Safety DVD Promotes 'Stop, Look, Listen And Learn With Hector'

Texaco has teamed up with Aardman Productions to bring the latest road safety lessons to life.
Stop, look, listen and learn with Hector, the latest road safety character who is being brought to life by Texaco, the UK’s largest branded network of independently-owned service stations with the help of triple Oscar winners, Aardman Animations.
The company behind the hugely popular 'Wallace and Gromit', 'Chicken Run' and 'Creature Comforts' series has teamed up with Texaco to create ‘The Peculiar Adventures of Hector’, a DVD that will be offered free to customers when they make a fuel purchase at any of Texaco’s 1,100 retail sites from the start of November.
The DVD enters the imaginative world of Hector as he embarks across a range of road safety lessons with the help of a colourful cast of animal friends. Offering creative titles such as, Hector and the hairy, scary tarantula’s tentacle, which tells children the importance of using a seatbelt, the films are designed to educate children through entertainment.
The films were released to coincide with the switch to daylight savings time and Texaco aim to make the roads a safer place by delivering five essential lessons which have been created in collaboration with the Department of Transport.
The five animations, along with ‘bloopers’ and ‘the making of Hector’ will be available as free downloads at www.hectorshome.com with games and interactive activities. An innovative story board building facility will be on offer where children can practise their animation skills through creating their own Hector adventure and even have the chance of winning a behind the scenes trip to see how the animation was put together through a competition that can be entered online.
Hector follows on from a host of road safety characters that have taught generations the importance of being road aware from the 'Tufty Club', Kevin Keegan to 'Green Cross Code man. Through the creation of a modern, streetwise character available in a modern DVD and online mediums, Texaco aims to make the challenge that parents face in teaching road safety an easier and more enjoyable task.
In 2006, a total of 3,294 children were killed or seriously injured on the roads, a figure that the Government wants to halve. Through offering interactive, fun materials, Texaco wants to play a part in reaching this target.
A spokesman for the Local Authority Road Safety Officers’ Association (LARSOA), said: “With the nights getting dark earlier and earlier as winter draws in it is very important that we get the ‘Be Safe Be Seen’ message out to as many children and parents as possible and we are really pleased to be working with Texaco to make sure we do this.
“Last year there was an increase in the number of child pedestrians and cyclists killed on the roads. 169 children died and the combined number of those killed or seriously injured was 3,294 – that is equal to nine children killed or injured every day of the year.”
“LARSOA is also calling on the government to introduce Double British Summertime which would mean an extra hour of daylight in the evenings during the winter months. Research shows this would save between 104 and 138 lives each year.”
(SP)