Speeding students see writing on the wall

AS part of a road safety survey at our school, we asked Leaving Cert 2 (LC2) students who drive whether they speed? A total of 42% said they never speed while 36% said they do sometimes.

Half of them said they often speed, while 11% said they speed to show off. A minority (6%) said they only speed when running late (Obviously some of them ticked more than one box).

If they were passengers in a speeding car, 48% of LC2 students would not ask the driver to slow down while 29% would travel in a car with drivers who had been drinking provided they didn’t seem too drunk.

Some 15% would travel in a car with a driver who had been drinking because they would be too embarrassed to make a fuss.

All of this seems crazy, especially when 55% of our students knew someone who was killed or seriously injured in a car crash. One-third of the people who have been killed on our roads this year were under 25, so it’s really time for young people to start to take responsibility for our own safety.

Even if we don’t actually drive we can take responsibility by wearing a seatbelt and ensuring others also do so.

We can also ask speeding drivers to slow down.

As part of our task we created a wall display with the names of all the people who have died so far this year. It was shocking to see more than 320 names up on the wall and to know they were all alive last Christmas. The sad fact is the list is only going to grow.

Melanie O’Brien

St Caimin’s Community School

Shannon

Co Clare