In 1989 when the Transport Accident Commission wanted a powerful road safety campaign to emphasise the personal costs of drink driving, they came up with possibly the best advertising slogan ever: “If you drink, then drive, you’re a bloody idiot.”
In that year there were 776 deaths on Australian roads; by 2012 it had fallen to 303. Anyone who’s been to Australia in the past decade will have heard that phrase; it’s still used as a friendly warning in pubs all the time.
So when the Foreign Office launched a public consultation on its travel advice and said it was looking at the Australian system, I was immediately keen to know exactly how it worked. I have to be honest, deep down I was hoping that somewhere on the Aussie government website I’d find the phrase “If you go to North Korea, you’re a bloody idiot.” Sadly that’s not the case but as I expected, their advice is clearer and stronger.
The website is just called Smartraveller – nice and simple – and its slogan is “Be Informed. Be Prepared. Stay smart while you’re travelling.” Rather than just having the “red, amber, green” approach adopted by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office here, Smartraveller has four levels of advice. The base level is green, which means exercise normal safety precautions, but the next level up is yellow, which means exercise a high degree of caution. By having this second level of advice (to destinations that are still OK to visit) the Australians are able to provide a more rounded view of the risk.
Amber in the UK means we advise against all but essential travel, but the FCO does not have a clear definition for essential and non-essential travel, simply stating that it’s down to an individual to determine whether a journey is required. In Australia amber means “reconsider your need to travel” which is a much clearer instruction. Red just means “do not travel”.
UK travel advice, as helpful as it is, was developed long before the rise of international terrorism, at a time when it was easier to categorise countries as either safe or not safe. But today, with the possibility of a terrorist attack happening almost anywhere, it seems to me that the FCO should be offering more comprehensive and plain speaking advice to travellers.
Of course it’s not easy. Terrorism by its very nature is hard to predict and devastating in its impact. But one act of terrorism does not necessarily mean we need to label a whole country unsafe; our own experience in the UK tells us this is over-simplistic. We need to be able to talk to our customers about the need for a higher level of caution without stopping them from travelling altogether.
Whatever the outcome, we should welcome the FCO’s decision to review its approach and we must be open to any new ideas which help to keep our customers safe and well informed.
