Education in avoidance
QFES brings action planning to Road Safety Week
National Road Safety Week this year suffers from the happy accident of running parallel, but not directly colliding, with the QFES Road Attitudes and Action Planning Program in a strategically placed, twin-fisted strike at the heart of the true danger which young drivers face on our roads…ignorance.
Local firies, led by Mossman Auxiliary Lieutenant Andrew Petrack recently ran a program at the school called Roads Attitudes and Action Planning (RAAP) for year 11 students who are in the midst of getting their licences.
RAAP is targeted at 17 to 24-year-olds, and is primarily designed to educate. QFES Auxiliary Lieutenant Andrew Petrack said: “This age group constitutes 25 percent of our nation's driving population, with 1200 fatalities per year.”
The program, which was conceived in New Zealand in 1996, was born of firefighter Bruce Barnes wishing to instruct youthful road users in the horrors of vehicular tragedy by giving them a first responders view. “We hit them pretty hard,” Mr Petrack continued, “Nothing overtly graphic. No blood and guts. But real images, real scenarios, combined with emotional accounts from the loved ones of victims.”
With National Walk Safely to School Day operating and encouraging awareness of road safety, RAAP is eager to join forces, focusing the blinding bright spotlight on road safety and supporting the importance of regular exercise, not just this May, but every day. “You are not invincible on the roads,” Mr Petrack concluded, “We want young people to think smarter not harder.”
Plan ahead
“We are communicating with the students that are primed and ready to head out and celebrate the end of their scholastic lives. We want them to plan ahead. Plan before you sit in the driver’s or passenger’s seat, plan before you head out to that party. Make sure that the transport you use and operate is safe, and that you are aware of your actions, there are always consequences.”
Inability, inattention, inexperience, overconfidence – these coupled with alcohol, drugs and deliberate risk taking are but some of the numerous contributing factors which light the way to sad and sombre ends for too many of Australia’s new drivers. A blessing indeed that such initiatives of this calibre are in place to assure, upon completion, that those students participating shall have a greater understanding and appreciation of how to identify the risk factors.
Knowing the effects of illegal substances combined with planning and illustrations of the consequences and their horrific inevitability shall guide the next generation of motorists from the dark end of the street to the bright side of the road.