SAFER September
Student Advocates For Everyone’s Road Safety
SAFER September is all about taking action in your school and community to influence safer road user behaviours for everyone in Aotearoa.
SAFER is an acronym and describes what we ask young student leaders across the country to be – student advocates for everyone’s road safety. We ask them to #speakup on the subject of people who are killed or seriously injured on our roads. We encourage them to start conversations on driver behaviour and to promote positive choices for safer road use within their school community.
SAFER September is an opportunity to run a fun activity (or series of activities and campaigns) that will teach your peers something about road safety. The best activity is the one that suits your school environment! There are loads of ideas on this page and in our activity hub.
Getting involved can also be in the form of sharing empowering road safety messages with your peers. Social media, posters, assembly presentations, community campaigns are just some of the ways that this can be achieved.
Conversation is key - lets ‘brake’ the silence this September and make sure everyone around us knows what they can do to keep Kiwis safe on our roads.
We want to hear what you get up to this September! Complete the below form to submit your outcomes - tell us what you did, how it went and how people responded! There are spot prizes up for grabs for students or groups who share their activities with us, so make sure you let us know so that you can be in the running for some awesome prizes !
If you have photos from your activity please email these to Mark@sadd.org.nz
We have created three plans that each have different activity ideas for SAFER September. The awesome thing about SAFER September is that you are not restricted by format - you are welcome to participate in any way that suits you, in fact we encourage it! You can even run an event in August or October if that works best for your school. Some schools may choose to run a bunch of activities throughout the month, for others it may suit better to hold one awesome day. Check out the plans below for some ideas and don’t forget to take a look at our activities page for even more inspiration!
There are so many options of SADD activities you can run over the month to create awareness and start vital conversations.
SADD is 39 years old this year so here is a list of 39 activity ideas to spark some inspiration! We encourage you to pick a couple to run in your school this September. Even if you can only tick off one, that is still an awesome achievement and a great step towards creating positive change for young road users. We’ve sorted these into 3 categories based on whether they are simple and quick to plan, might need a wee bit of advanced planning, and then our bigger ‘all in’ ideas. Don’t forget that the small and quick activities can be just as effective when done right!
Write your own road safety messages and put them in the school notices
Design your own road safety posters that are specific to your school audience and post them up around the school. You can also order some of our posters and put them up too!
Write messages and statistics and draw pictures on the ground in chalk to capture attention
Print off some advisory notices to place on the windscreens of student and teacher cars
Do a traffic observation session. Set up near the school gate or on a nearby road before and after school. What do you notice about your local traffic? Are there key issues or things happening in your area that you can investigate further?
Create a series of Tiktok videos about different road safety themes.
Set up a message board where people can add their own road safety messages. You could use post-it notes, coloured markers or make it digital using social media.
Set up a pledge wall where people can sign their name or add their handprint as a pledge to always make safe driving decisions
Hand out conversation cards to everyone to get them talking about road safety issues
Run a seatbelt check as student cars leave at the end of the day. Give out spot prizes for those who are wearing their seatbelt correctly.
Run a survey to gather your school’s thoughts and experience on local road safety issues
Create packs to give out to students who are getting ready to sit their learners test. Include SADD stickers, conversation cards and messages about road safety
Start up a Tiktok or Instagram page for your SADD group and invite everyone from your school to follow. Use this to share your road safety tips and messages
Draw a giant snakes and ladders game in an open area at lunchtime and invite people to play. Ask them questions from the road code and they have to get them right in order to progress through the game.
Set up the ‘After Party’ interactive video at lunchtime and get small groups to go through it together. You can also encourage teachers to use it in their classes.
Hold a quiz! You could do this in a lunch break or make it a series for whanau time over a week.
Run a tyre tread checking clinic in the student carpark. measure everyone’s tyre tread and hold discussions about why it’s important to maintain a safe tread depth. Let us know if you need some tread checking tools and we can help you out!
Soak up some knowledge - get teams answering questions from the road code, if they get it wrong the opposing team gets to pelt them with a water bomb!
Create mini road signs to place around your school and set up practice courses for navigating intersections and roundabouts
Fast and furious - challenge students to a task (jenga is a good one!) as fast as they can and then get them to repeat it with more time and more care. What gets better results?
Hold a scavenger hunt using road safety themed clues
Set up a pledge wall where people can sign their name or add their handprint as a pledge to always make safe driving decisions
Hold a ‘true or false’ activity to test people’s road safety knowledge. This could be in an assembly or in a classroom environment
Show a video or a presentation in assembly - we have heaps of options on our website and youtube!
Do the “what would you miss activity” where you get people to write on a post-it note what they would miss if they were killed or hurt in a crash.
Hide matchbox cars around school with road safety stats taped to them. Make it a competition to see who can find the most!
Run a ‘dress up a door’ competition - challenge classes to decorate their classroom door to represent a road safety theme.
Invite your local Police in to school and see if they can bring the impairment bus or a police car. Get students to join in a chat at lunchtime around road safety and making good choices.
Hold a cardboard car race - get students to decorate their cardboard car and then complete an obstacle course
Hold a road safety themed debate. Our conversation cards have great discussion questions which make for good debate topics!
Design and create a SADD mural at your school
Hold a high-vis non-uniform day as a fundraiser for SADD or for your SADD group’s future activities
Run a sausage sizzle where students need to give a road safety message or fact to get their sausage. A local business or your local Road Safety Coordinator may be able to sponsor you and provide the sausages!
Set up the ‘After Party’ interactive video at a community event or sports tournament - it’s a great activity for people to engage with in between matches!
Head out with your local police on a breathtesting checkpoint. Check in with your Delivery Lead to see if this can be arranged in your area.
Run a car wash fundraiser
Hold a distractions obstacle course. Get students to complete a course while simultaneously completing a task that also requires their attention. Discuss how this makes things so much harder!
Hold a road safety expo with local emergency services.
Run a tyre changing competition
"You Drive, you Decide"
You control your own actions behind the wheel. Don’t let others pressure you into taking risks like speeding or showing off. Safe driving isn’t just about following rules—it’s about respecting your life and the lives of others
“Set the Pace”
Set the standard for safety by encouraging your friends to drive responsibly. When you lead by example—whether by refusing to drive distracted or always wearing a seatbelt—your friends are more likely to follow.
A great way to participate in SAFER September is to share digital content that will reach young people and help raise awareness of key road safety messages. There are so many ways to do this including posting on social media or asking school if it can be included in the school newsletter or daily notices.
We have created a series of images and key message posts that you can download and use in whatever way you see fit this month. Just remember to tag @SADDNZ and use the hashtags #SAFERSeptember #SADDNZ and #speakup!
Click each image to download. Make sure to use the key messages as captions to give the post more impact!
“Safety Speaks Louder”
Speak up when it comes to safety. In Aotearoa, too many young lives are lost due to peer pressure on the road. Speak loud—your voice could be the difference between a fun night out and a tragedy.
SAFER September is an awesome reason to get out into your community and connect with other road safety partners. There are some great organisations out there who are working hard to improve road safety and would love to work with you on shared initiatives. For ideas and inspiration on how to do this, check out our community connections page or contact our team for advice
We hope you have a fun and meaningful September, filled with positive road safety messages. Whatever you get up to, don’t forget to let us know about it! We love to hear your stories and see photos of your activities. If you have something to share or any questions about SAFER September, please don’t hesitate to contact our team.
Keen to share your event with local media? Talk to our team first for some guidance and tips!