Cop sirens took the Beiruti night scene by storm on Saturday, as a group of police officers infiltrated Uruguay Street in the down town area, arresting several young men and women about to get behind the wheel under the influence of alcohol. This, however, was no ordinary arrest; it was part of RYMCO’s awareness campaign, “Suggest an Arrest”, aimed at educating youth on the dangers of drunk driving.
This initiative comes in line with RYMCO’s corporate social responsibility program and commitment to give back to the community by helping reduce youth mortality rate in Lebanon caused by car accidents. It is also part of Nissan’s “Hello Safety Campaign”, a global traffic safety movement designed to improve road safety through the prevention of driving under influence, while striving to design and engineer safer vehicles by enhancing safety technologies and features.
“Due to limited traffic regulations in Lebanon, people and particularly the youth, often tend to drink and drive. To date, there has been no abiding law enforcement mechanisms applied to control drunk driving, which leads to deadly accidents and an increased number of causalities every year”, said Fayez Rasamny, Chairman and CEO of RYMCO. “Our aim is to halve the number of fatal and serious injuries from car accidents caused by drunk driving. And this is how the idea of the campaign was conceived”, he added.
As part of the activation, 4 Nissan cars, the all-new Sentra and Juke models, were parked in Uruguay area, ready to pick up young party goers who have had one drink too many. The RYMCO arrest team, dressed as police men and women, surrounded the area with yellow tape showing the activity logo, arrested few people, subjected them to several alcohol tests, took their mug shot, then drove them home in the Nissan cars while their own vehicles were delivered to them by sober RYMCO drivers.
On the way home, RYMCO offered arrested people the hangover kit composed of a coffee tumbler and a mint box to encourage them in the future to sober up before getting into their cars, as well as an exclusive invitation to Nissan VIP Event that will be held in Lebanon soon.
Following this activity, a series of arrests will be conducted every Friday and Saturday over the period of one month in various hot and happening nightlife spots across Lebanon. For this, RYMCO will launch an application on their Facebook page inviting their fans to suggest friends to be arrested and, unknowingly, take part of the campaign. All the arrests will be filmed and the videos will then be posted on RYMCO’s Facebook page and YouTube channel.
For RYMCO, safety comes first; this is why they strive not only to bring into the Lebanese market cars with top notch safety features and technologies, but also to shed the light on critical road safety issues arising in the country.