Motorcyclists make up less than 1% of traffic but account for more than 20% of serious and fatal vehicle casualties in England. Our brief was to encourage men 35-55, who ride their motorbikes for leisure, to ride more cautiously in order to stop getting killed and seriously injured. Whilst riders tend to blame car drivers, the truth is, many fatalities involve rider error and many don’t involve another vehicle at all. But research told us that this audience don’t want to be lectured on bike safety by the government or road safety bodies.

We decided to use riders' love of their bikes to provoke a shift in attitude towards safety, reminding them that they should look after their bodies just as well as their beloved bikes. To do this, we created a fake bike brand, BikerTek. The BikerTek brand and products are designed to catch the eye of a biker - high-tech, premium chrome parts. But on closer inspection we reveal that each part is not for a bike, but actually a real medical prosthetic, used to repair bikers' broken bodies when they get into accidents.

Our target audience - men aged 35-55 who ride motorbikes for pleasure - reject advertising from government bodies and road safety campaigns. For many riders, going for a ride on the weekend is pure escapism. The last thing they want is to engage with the real dangers of riding. So our strategic approach was to create a campaign completely unlike a traditional safety campaign, delivered by spokespeople who bikers would trust and listen to rather than from Highways England, a government agency. Additionally, we knew that we could reach the biking community more effectively if our idea could be brought to life at biker cafes and events. Once we had their attention we knew (from Highways England data) that there were four areas our staff needed to focus on to reduce fatalities: speed, overtaking, cornering and fatigue.

We created a fake bike brand, BikerTek, and spoke to thousands of bikers through pop-up shops at events across England. Our pop-up shops displayed what looked like high-tech bike parts, but on closer inspection it was revealed they were actually prostheses, used in surgery after serious accidents. Specially built displays revealed, at the touch of a button, how they could be grafted to the bone. The pop-up shops were manned by real bikers, not actors, who had all had a life changing accident (requiring prostheses) as a result of reckless riding. Our staff welcomed bikers into the pop-up and showed the parts off, eventually revealing that they are fitted to bikers, not to bikes, and telling their own story. Between July and September 2019 the pop-ups appeared at the biggest events on the English motorcycling calendar as well as at biker cafes on popular riding routes and motorbike jumble sales.

Whilst statistical change in the number of deaths and serious injuries, as a result of this campaign, may not come to light for many months or even years we have lots of evidence that the campaign really hit home with many bikers. Of the bikers who visited our pop up shop over the Summer, 57% said they would change the way they ride as a result and more than a third requested information on Advanced Rider Courses. The feedback we received at the events and on social media was also great. The B&T magazine called the activation “One of the most effective road safety campaigns you’ll ever see” and visitors to the pop up shop described it as “the smartest campaign yet”, “brilliant”, “amazing” and “genius”.