Teens learn lessons of speeding

MORE than 700 secondary school students have heard harrowing and graphic details of the consequences of dangerous driving as part of a cross-border initiative to target young male drivers.

In the border regions men aged between 17 and 24 years old are six times more likely to be involved in fatal and serious collisions involving speed.

After the road show a number of the girls said they would get their boyfriends to slow down.

The 750 students were from transition year classes in Louth and Monaghan and were invited there as part of Cooperation

And Working Together (CAWT) Steering to Safety project which wants to reduce the number and severity of road traffic collisions on both sides of the border.

A hospital consultant showed them x-rays of a brain injury and gardaí and fire brigade officers talked of what they see and experience when they arrive at a crash scene.

Paramedic Pat Sheridan said: “School girls I spoke to afterwards said they would now tell their boyfriends to slow down.”

A survivor of a crash who is now paralysed detailed how his life has changed while Nina Brown spoke movingly about life without her daughter who was studying for her Leaving Certificate when she died following a crash.

Some of the teenagers said it had brought home to them the horror that can be inflicted.

“It has really made me think about all the people affected when dealing with a road traffic accident,” said one girl.

Another student said, “Everyone was really touched by it. Having real people, the guard, the doctor really made the event and the mother had us in tears.”

Another girl said, “It totally shocked everyone but it definitely made us all wary about going into cars with guys who drive too fast.”

Teacher Conor Pentony from St Louis Secondary School in Carrickmacross, said: “It should be run every year as a vital part of a school’s road safety awareness and education programme. I was very impressed with the realism of the road show.”

The road shows are based on ones run by the PSNI in Northern Ireland for a number of years. More are planned for

Enniskillen which the organisers say would be accessible to Cavan schools and another in Donegal that is open to Derry-based schools.