Katharine Wootton Head phones on, hands in pockets, head down: it’s easy to spend your time lost in another world zipping through your music playlist rather than focusing on the people, the city and more importantly, the risks, around you. However, now York based Network Rail are teaming up with a famous musician Professor Green in a bid to encourage people to favour road safety over their music escapism.
In the past five years, train drivers and railway staff have reported 19 incidents where pedestrians, joggers or cyclists have continued to walk through level crossings blissfully unaware of the severe danger hurtling towards them by approaching trains because of being too engrossed in their music.
So to encourage people to remember the dangers level crossings continually impose, the rapper Professor Green will join forces with Network Rail to create a digital campaign entitled ‘Lose Your Headphones’ which wants music lovers to stop to ditch the headphones and instead use their head.
The campaign headed by the hit Hackney musician will also feature a music video to be featured on music streaming service, Spotify, and promoted across all social media. As further incentive for people to lose their headphones and recall their basic road safety, Network Rail are offering prizes of Sonos music speakers to five winners who re-tweet the campaign messages to their followers.
Speaking of why he wished to participate in this important campaign, Professor Green, said: “I never imagined asking people to stop listening to my music but this is about staying safe, so just for a minute, I want them to stop. I know it’s very easy to get caught up in a track when you have your headphones on and get distracted from where you are and what’s around you but I’m asking, please, lose your headphones when at a level crossing and pay attention to all the safety warnings. I don’t want anyone to end up on the tracks listening to one of mine.”
