Surrey Fire and Rescue Service and Surrey Police host charity football match
It's to kick off their road safety campaign.
A football match between Surrey's emergency services is taking place today to raise awareness on Road Safety.
Surrey Fire and Rescue Service are hosting Surrey Police at a match at Meadowbank Football Ground in Dorking today, Friday 4 November.
The force's hold road safety campaigns annually, but have chosen to 'kick off' the campaign this year with a football match designed to open up conversation, particularly with young football fans.
A wider campaign is going to be launched ahead of the World Cup, which starts on November 20th.
Often, national and International football can see an increase in road safety call outs, both for the police and fire service.
Deputy Chief Fire Officer, Jon Simpson hopes that the conversation can be opened up by using football to convey their road safety messaging.
"Unfortunately, we see a consistent increase in road traffic collisions during the winter months, we also see an increase during national and international football events.
"For the first time, the World Cup is taking place in the winter, so there's a combination of events there for us, we thought we would use football as one of our mediums to deliver our key safety messages."
Content captured from today's match will be used within the wider campaign during the winter period, which hopes to prevent people from driving under the influence of drink or drugs.
Whilst campaigns take place every year, there are still a large amount of road traffic collisions annually. Last year, 30% of road deaths were due to people not wearing a seatbelt.
Jon said, "If you're drinking and watching the game, please walk or book a taxi, or use public transport. Don't get in the car and be driving if you've had anything to drink whatsoever.
"If your head's not in the game, don't drive, you should not be behind the wheel if you're feeling stressed or emotional, as this can affect and impair your judgement.
"In terms of points, three points from a football point of view are really important, three points on your driving license, less so.
"We're urging people to make sensible decisions."
Speeches before the match starts will begin at 2pm today, and the match is free for members of the public to attend.
Jon will be in attendance at the match, he said:
"It's a fixture that's been played a few times, so I think colleagues in Fire and Rescue have got some work to do, as I think we were fairly convincingly beaten last time!
"In all good fun and sense, we will be working hard to try and put on a nice, competitive performance."
Kick off is at 2:30pm.