Among many areas of human activity resulting in the development of civilization, it is possible to identify those significantly threatening his health and life. One of them is increasing mobility, that brings many benefits, but also lead to high social, economic and environmental costs of road traffic. According to the current data provided by World Health Organization, road accidents are listed as one of the ten leading causes of death in the world. In order to protect human life and health, international organisations, national gov- ernments, actors and organisations undertake a number of actions aimed at changing the behaviour of road traffic participants. Initiatives aimed at motivating road traffic participants to behave correctly include social campaigns. In Poland there are many social campaigns for the improvement of road traffic safety At the same time, it should be stressed that the preventive nature of this type of action makes it impossible to assess its effectiveness unequivocally. The article presents the results of direct studies on the recognition of social campaigns for the improvement of road safety in Poland and the assessment of their actual influence on the improvement of safety by road traffic participants.