Celebrity Involvement in Fatality Free Friday

Fatality Free Friday has attracted the involvement of a number of well-known Australians, some of whom have a personal stake in road safety.

The patron of Fatality Free Friday is Bev Brock, partner for 28 years of motor racing driver Peter Brock.

Bev said she was pleased to support Fatality Free Friday as a way of enhancing Peter Brock’s legacy of encouraging better driving.

“If my support can further Peter’s legacy and cause a single person to rethink a potentially poor choice or to remind them that when they’re behind the wheel, they’re 100% responsible for their action, then I’m very pleased to do it,” she said. “We have to be creative in our approach to reducing the road toll. This is an issue we’d dearly love to see fixed and Fatality Free Friday is an excellent way of reminding people about what they can do to save a life.”

In 2008, Scott Prince, co-captain of the Jetstar Gold Coast Titans NRL team, spoke about his personal experience of the road toll - the loss of his father in 2001 just two weeks after celebrating his 21st birthday - and was an ambassador for Fatality Free Friday.

In The Brisbane Times, Prince said the tragedy had changed his life and his way of driving, and urged drivers to practise caution on the roads at all times:

"I lost a loved one on the road, so I guess the message is ... just be careful and be responsible," Prince told reporters on the Gold Coast. "Thinking back, (you think) it won't happen to you, but it can certainly happen to anybody and it can change your life forever."

Prince said his father was a victim of fatigue when he crashed during a lengthy road trip. "It's pretty difficult. I think about my father every day," he said. "We've got a picture up in the house and the kids look at him as their granddad, and that's all the memories that they'll have."

In 2009, Fatality Free Friday welcomed V8 Supercars driver Russell Ingall as an ambassador. Ingall noted that he often feels safer on the race track than on ordinary roads and was critical of the way many drivers fail to drive to suit road conditions.