ETA zebra crossing pops up in Parliament

A pop-up zebra crossing designed by the ETA has scooped top honours at the Green Apple Awards, which took place this week at the Palace of Westminster.

The pop-up zebra crossing was an example of guerrilla marketing - a low-cost, unconventional, and often localised way of promoting a product or an idea, which in this case was road safety during Green Transport Week 2012.

On behalf of the thousands of children who struggle each day to cross busy streets outside their schools, the pop-up zebra crossing was designed to be installed on any road in less than a minute.

£50 zebra crossing

The idea caught the imagination of the national press because the crossing cost less than £50 – a tiny fraction of the tens of thousands quoted by local authorities. It used recycled linoleum, drain pipes and two orange balloons to create an effect almost indistinguishable from the real thing.

Requests for zebra crossings, even for those outside schools, are frequently turned down on the basis of cost.

Spokesperson at the ETA, Yannick Read, said: “It's gratifying that the pop-up zebra crossing has been recognised in this way because although the idea was tongue-in-cheek, the issue is deadly serious - over 2,000 children are killed or seriously injured each year on our roads and parents should never have to battle to have a genuine crossing installed.”

Road safety guerrilla marketing from around the world

Canadian organisation, Preventable, wanted to highlight the danger posed by traffic around schools so it designed a sticker that when applied to the road surface, gives the impression a child is standing in the middle of the street. The sticker was used for one week only at the start of a new school term to capture the attention of drivers and pedestrians.

It’s now commonplace for cricket pitches to be printed with elongated advertising slogans, which appear in their correct proportions when seen from a particular angle – in most cases from where the television cameras are situated. The road stickers work in the same way. The image of the young child gradually appears to be three dimensional as drivers approach.

The sticker was installed following careful consultation with the local council, parents, school board, engineers and police.

Closer to home, child-shaped bollards were installed on the kerb outside Avenue Primary School in Leicester to help enforce a 20mph speed limit.