Transition students to take part in graphic road safety campaign

A CAMPAIGN to introduce a graphic driver safety programme in the nation’s schools will be launched in Cork next week.

Transition-year students at St Aidan’s school on Dublin Hill will take part in the one-day Drive4Life programme run by the Bantry-based Drive Safe 4 Life company on Monday.

The event has been organised by Cork North-Central Fianna Fáil TD Noel O’Flynn, a member of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport.

Mr O’Flynn will attend the event and will call on the Government to introduce a similar scheme as a compulsory part of the transition year programme in the country’s schools.

Drive4Life uses graphic photographs and videos to highlight the tragic consequences of speeding.

Students are shown photographs of crashed cars and a video of young car crash survivors — all clients of Dublin’s National Rehabilitation Centre — who have been confined to wheelchairs.

Another video outlines the tragic impacts that deaths in car crashes can have on families.

“This is just an example of the kind of programme we need rolled out in schools across the country,” Mr O’Flynn said.

“The programme should be fully funded by the Government and led by the Department of Education through the National Roads Safety Authority.

“It’s time to get real about road safety. The carnage on our roads in the past two weeks has taught us that the message about sensible driver behaviour is not getting through to young people.

“Crashing a car at 100km per hour is the same as dropping it from an 11-storey building.

“This programme graphically focuses on the consequences of driver error.

“It shocks students into realising that cars can be lethal weapons.

“It’s a fact that out of the Leaving Certificate students of 1999, over 2,000 of them will either be killed or injured on roads by 2007.”

Mr O’Flynn said the Government has to address the reality of road fatalities.