Journey Beyond Road Trauma

Journey Beyond Road Trauma is an online community where you can create tributes, connect with people affected by road trauma, share your story, and campaign for road safety. 

This IndieGoGo campaign is a way for you to help encourage people to drive safely and educate the wider community about road safety. IndieGoGo passes your donations on to Sandra and Kerry at Journey Beyond Road Trauma so the next stage of this important project can be funded.

Our Story

In 2004, Sandra Cook lost her dad, Bill, in a car crash in Adelaide, Australia. A driver on the opposite side of the road crossed the median strip, hitting Bill's car head-on. He never regained consciousness after the crash and died 11 days later in hospital. 

Sandra and the Cook family began a long process of grieving, investigation and recovery. A key event in Sandra's journey was in March 2005, when she started filming her family as they struggled to come to terms with the legal process surrounding her father's death. As a result of this personal project, in 2008 Sandra teamed up with online producer Kerry Sunderland to develop a transmedia documentary project (that's when the story elements appear across a number of media, like TV, the Internet, and print) based on the Cook family's story and the thousands of others like it. This was the beginning of journeybeyondroadtrauma.org.

Stage one of journeybeyondroadtrauma.org was launched at Easter in 2010, after collaborating with road safety experts, community members & community organisations. Around this time, the community received financial support from Screen Australia, the South Australian Film Corporation, the Royal Automobile Association (RAA) and the Alcohol Education and Rehabilitation Foundation. Many individuals whose lives have been touched by road trauma also made donations through the Documentary Australia Foundation. Eventually, Journey Beyond Road Trauma will become a worldwide project to save lives on roads everywhere.

Now, Sandra and Kerry are asking for your support to bring the project to the next stage, so it can help more people and help prevent any more road trauma.

Here's What We're Going To Do...

Stage two of Journey Beyond Road Trauma expands on the existing site and adds an array of new elements, including webisodes (mini documentaries) which will appear on the website. Your donation will help us to:

• Make an interactive documentary of THE RIDE, a brand-new series of webisodes telling this story:
  

• Further develop the community site by improving interactivity for the 'memory spaces', expanding the maps, and adding new content.

The Results

We need donations from our community to support the growth of journeybeyondroadtrauma.org, but most of all to fund production of THE RIDE. Our funding period runs until we'll literally be on the road to start filming Peter's journey. If we don't make the money in time we'll do the best we can with what we've got, but we're reaching out to you for help to make this project the best it can be. We believe that others share our vision and want to contribute to the creation of a valuable resource that will prevent other people from being touched by road trauma.

How Much Do We Need? 

What You Get

Every one of our supporters and community members gets to be a part of reducing the road toll in Australia, and ultimately internationally. As for rewards for our Indiegogo donors, look up to the right --> to see the different supporter tiers and thank you gifts! We have some great rewards courtesy of Hachette Australia and Toyota Australia, whose support as rewards partners shows that they take road safety seriously.

What Happens If We Don't Reach Our Target?

If we reach our goal, we'll be able to invest more funds into making journeybeyondroadtrauma.org better, more accessible and more international. We will be able to create new educational resources for different audiences, like little kids, teenagers and professional drivers. We'll never stop working to reduce road trauma.

Other Ways You Can Help? Spread the Word!

Crowdfunding requires a crowd, and we're inviting you to join our crowd and help to grow it. Do you have a friend or family member who would be interested in journeybeyondroadtrauma.org, and in supporting our campaign? Maybe you're a member of a Facebook group for whom this would be relevant, or you work for a company that has a CSR policy or sponsorship officer. Perhaps your school has lost a student to the road toll and your school community wants to stop it happening again. Please share our campaign far and wide, because with a little bit of love from a lot of people...

We Can Do This!