Students and gardaí team up for safe driving

A PARTNERSHIP between secondary school children and gardaí has the aim of cutting down on the number of young drivers killed on the roads of Cork, Kerry and Limerick.

Hundreds of students converged on Mallow yesterday where they saw crashed cars, graphic video images of injuries and listened to garda experts warn them about the dangers of speed and drink-driving.

The exercise was the brainchild of transition year students at St Mary’s Secondary School, Mallow, who were so worried about the carnage on Irish roads they sought the help of Inspector Billy Duane, who is in charge of the Garda Traffic Corps in the region.

The idea is that school representatives who attended yesterday’s seminar will try and instil safe driving habits in fellow students.

Inspector Duane said: “Within the region we have had 23 single-vehicle accidents this year with 24 of the victims being under 25-years-old.”

A total of 59 people have been killed in the three counties this year and about 2,200 arrested on suspicion of drink-driving.

Gardaí are trying to instil responsibility into young drivers, but have warned they will crackdown on so-called boy racers who speed, have inappropriate lights, modified exhausts, oversized wheels and blacked-out windows.

For the first time the Garda Road Safety Unit came out of Dublin to provide a lecture which shocked and impressed students.

Maria Dowling, a student at Mercy Secondary School in Tralee, said a woman from her village in her early 20s lost control of her car and died. “It was such a terrible waste of life,” she said.

Samantha Deane, a pupil at St Mary’s Secondary School, said she’d be advising her male driver friends to slow down.

“They should slow down, if they don’t hurt themselves they could hurt or kill others,” she said, adding boy racers might think they impressed girls but they don’t.