Mock crash marks 30 years of SADD
Thirty years of SADD (Students Against Dangerous Driving) have been marked with a mock crash at Mahurangi College, where it all began.
Organised by students, the crash was set up during school last week, drawing crowds of onlookers.
Mahurangi College SADD representative Brenton Baker says the exercise was a success, with the majority of students checking out the crash.
‘‘It went really well, really smoothly. I felt really good about myself because all of the planning that went into it really paid off,’’ the year 13 student says.
The mock crash involved one smashed car from a wrecker, three student actors as victims, and emergency services.
Warkworth Volunteer Fire Brigade, St John’s ambulance and Warkworth police all sent vehicles to tend the scene.
Brenton says the emergency services ignored students and treated the mock crash as a training exercise, extracting one student victim from the car.
‘‘They did what they would do in a normal crash. They worked with St John’s to cut the roof off the vehicle so paramedics could strap the survivor,’’ Brenton says.
Brenton lost a family member in a motor accident, and says SADD continues to be relevant as accidents with young Kiwis keep happening.
He says the mock crashes work well and continue to be a good way to get SADD’s safety message
‘‘Everyone thought it was a cool representation of what happens, what goes into a crash’’ Brenton Baker
across.
‘‘Everyone thought it was a cool representation of what happens, what goes into a crash, and how many people it affects,’’ Brenton says.
SADD has been operating in New Zealand schools since its inception at Mahurangi College three decades ago.
It is now in three quarters of all New Zealand schools, helping young people to make better choices about drink driving and road safety.
Between 1986 and 2015, 2371 teens aged 15-19 lost their lives on the roads, making road trauma the greatest source of harm to Kiwi youth along with suicide.
But the frequency of fatalities has reduced significantly since SADD began.
The number of deaths and injuries among young people in 2015 was 71 per cent lower in it was in 1986.