20,000 Reasons to Slow Down and Change Your Name

19 Jan 2011

MEDIA RELEASE: 19 January 2011

The township of Speed will be renamed SpeedKills and local farmer Phil Down will change his name to Phil "Slow" Down for one month as the Rename Speed campaign officially recorded its 20,000th supporter just before 10pm tonight.

The unveiling of the new town signs will take place at a ceremony in Speed at a date soon to be determined.

Flooding has affected areas in around Speed, and until the local people are ready, the ceremony will be put on hold.

The campaign, aimed at reducing country road trauma and putting a stop to rural speeding, has proved successful in beaming the road safety message to every corner of Australia, with the tiny Victorian town achieving media exposure in Darwin, Perth, Sydney and Melbourne.

With its army of supporters on www.facebook.com/speedkills, the Rename Speed campaign has now set its sights on attracting the attention of the nation's most popular personalities to their name changing ceremony.

A callout to the campaign's Facebook page fans will be made to determine their preference on a celebrity or official to unveil the town's new sign. Suggested people to invite include Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott, Premier Ted Baillieu, Hamish and Andy, or Shane Warne.

Campaign coordinators, the Transport Accident Commission (TAC), are now planning on going global by attempting to make contact with people who live in overseas towns called Speed to gauge their interest in also changing their name to SpeedKills for the month of February to further enhance the message.

TAC Acting CEO, Phil Reed, said there are five towns called Speed in the USA, and help is needed to contact residents of each community.

"Road crashes the biggest killer of youth aged 10-24 in the world and this is an opportunity for us to extend this awareness-raising campaign to another part of the globe that can help send the message," Mr Reed said.

The World Health Organisation states that 260,000 youths die and a further 10 million are injured every year on the roads.

"If the tiny town of Speed in Victoria can gain such an enormous following in less than a week, imagine how much of a difference we could make if this is spread overseas."

Supporters of Rename Speed are urged to send the Facebook link www.facebook.com/speedkills to their entire network of friends and family and encourage them to hit the "like" symbol and support the campaign.

For further information please contact: Sarah Henderson on 0429 294 262.