CORNWALL Council Road Safety Unit held a Young Driver Education Programme at Budehaven Community School last Thursday.
The day was aimed at Year 12 students, some of whom are already driving, many more who soon will be. The programme, which is in its 12th year, has been designed to inform and influence the next generation of drivers, allowing them to make
educated decisions about safer driving.
In 2008 in Cornwall there were 562 car and motorcycle casualties aged 17 to 24. Two of these young car casualties occurred in Bude.
Carol Wright, Temporary Road Safety Project Co-ordinator said: "Young drivers in the 17 to 24-year-old age range are a very vulnerable, inexperienced group, involved in disproportionately high numbers of collisions on our roads and research
indicates that one in five drivers have a collision in the first year after passing their driving test."
Of the 562 casualties in this age group in Cornwall in 2008, 185 were car passengers. Passengers can also be distracting to all groups of driver because of movement, noise and general disruption in the car and the collision risk for young drivers is much higher when carrying passengers.
The presence of friends in a car can encourage young drivers to drive in a more dangerous way and the collision risk dramatically increases with each additional passenger carried.
The highly successful Young Driver Education Programme highlights these issues in a one day series of classroom workshops designed to appeal to students in this age group. The hard hitting workshops are activity based using a mixture of DVDs, worksheets, problem solving exercises, role play, practical demonstrations and discussions and focus on knowledge, attitudes and risk perception.
Mrs Wright added: "Cornwall Council Road Safety Unit work in partnership with the Driving Standards Agency, Devon and Cornwall Constabulary, Cornwall Fire Brigade and Trading Standards to bring the programme to establishments in Cornwall and make young drivers more knowledgeable about the risks and hazards they face on the roads and ways in which to combat them."
Research has shown that some of the less desirable attitudes of young drivers are learned from their parents or peers before they themselves learn to drive. With this in mind the programme aims to foster responsible attitudes to driving at the start of their driving career.
The Young Driver Education Programme aims to alert students to the dangers of driving and enable them to take responsibility for their own and other's safety by making informed decisions about driving safely.
At the end of the workshops students were given an evaluation sheet where they had the opportunity to comment on the value of each session, and the day as a whole, and therefore the Road Safety Unit can ensure that the programme continues to be aimed appropriately to make a positive impression on students.