Stopping new drivers take the wrong path
Future funding of road-safety initiative aimed at students is uncertain
“It is completely devastating. Until you experience and feel it you do not fully understand or think it’s going to happen to you.”
Whether it is family members, friends or emergency 999 responders, fatal road accidents have massive, wide-reaching and long lasting consequences for those involved.
The causes of many collisions come down to choices and often the wrong ones.
This is what Safe Drive Stay Alive tries to explain to young people in West Sussex who are either already driving or learning to drive.
The course is seen by around 8,000 students a year aged between 17 and 24 and combines road-safety messages with first-hand accounts from those either caught up in or responding to tragedies on our roads.
Funding for the roadshows was almost axed by West Sussex County Council earlier this year as part of proposed cuts to some non-statutory services.
However in January council leaders decided to guarantee its funding for at least another year.
In the meantime they are hoping to find sponsorship for some of the at-risk services.
Firefighter Chris Bowles has compèred the events for the last decade.
He has worked at West Sussex Fire and Rescue service for 15 years and is station commander for Bognor Regis, Selsey and East Wittering.
Although it is hard to quantify, Chris believes that Safe Drive continues to have a significant impact on improving the behaviour of young drivers and reducing the likelihood of them being involved in serious accidents.
He said: “Most people you spoke to would still remember seeing Safe Drive Stay Alive at school.”
He says he is ‘always amazed’ by the change in body language of students before and after the show.
When they come in there is often a bit of bravado but afterwards they are a lot quieter and more subdued.
Some will come and talk to the team afterwards, for others it’s a simple nod of acknowledgement.
The show not only gives attendees a lot to think about, it also provokes conversations with friends and family members, with the themes and messages then spreading even further.
A quarter of young drivers are involved in an accident in their first two years, while over the past three years 16 to 24 year olds have accounted for 45 per cent of people killed or seriously injured (KSI) in West Sussex.
Chris said: “That’s why we get this age group, it’s not saying they are the only bad drivers on the road, they are not. A lot are actually very good drivers.”
When avoidable accidents do occur they often happen due to distraction, ranging from mobile phone use to just not being in the right frame of mind.
He explained: “When you have a driving lesson you do not get taught to drive with people in the back or allweather conditions or being over the speed limit.”
On stage he talks to young people about the dangers of the fatal four when driving: speeding, using a mobile phone, not wearing a seat belt and being under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
The main film then shows a group of teenagers in a car where the driver becomes distracted and crashes into a tree, killing one of the passengers and critically injuring another.
Students then hear firsthand accounts from the victims, family members and 999 responders personally affected by devastating road crashes.
One of the team members who presents is a mum who lost two of her sons in separate road traffic collisions.
“You can’t not find it emotional,” Chris said.
He added: “It’s completely devastating. Until you experience and feel it you do not fully understand or think it’s going to happen to you.
“You think it’s not going to happen to you because you are a good driver or your friend is a good driver.”
Chris once slightly changed what he said on stage to include talking about a recent accident he had attended but found it too raw to discuss something that ‘could have been so easily avoided’.
He added: “We are emotionally involved and that’s why we do Safe Drive Stay Alive.”
He still remembers the first fatal collision he attended as a new recruit, which had a huge impact on him as the three young people who died were all of a similar age to him.
While the impact of losing a loved one in a road accident is devastating to friends and family the ‘ripples’, as Chris calls them, are felt much further.
Paramedics and firefighters have to process and deal with what they have seen, while if there are drivers at fault they can be prosecuted and jailed, which also has an impact on their lives and the people around them.
For emergency services there is support available if requested and for firefighters the crews often sit down together to talk to each other and offer peer support.
Chris added: “Nobody every forgets those experiences.”
Chris Attfield, who is a South East Coast Ambulance Service paramedic of 30 years, based in Tangmere, has been involved in Safe Drive Stay Alive for the past 12 years.
He signed up after seeing too many young lives ‘wasted’ where road accidents had been caused by drivers either doing something wrong or just being too inexperienced.
Attending his first serious road traffic accident was ‘quite shocking’, even though he knew it was part of his job.
He said: “The reality hit home and unfortunately people make mistakes and it’s not a nice thing to see but it’s part and parcel of our roles.”
Like firefighters, paramedics will sit down and talk to each other after a serious accident as ‘it does halve the problem’.
For Chris Attfield Safe Drive is about ‘planting that seed’ about good behaviour behind the wheel as colleagues whose children have seen it tell him they are often discussing it weeks later at the dinner table.
In his speech he talks about speed and not driving faster than your guardian angel can fly. He once received a letter from an attendee who said she had a flashback to that part of his speech just before her first driving lesson, showing the messages often stay with those who hear them.
He added: “The nice thing about Safe Drive is we do not lecture and dictate to them.
“We lay out the pros and cons. It’s up to them to take things away from it.”
He continued: “We want to be there for the events so we can prevent the students from taking the wrong path. We do not want to be the ones that cut them out of the car and have to treat them because they did not have the chance of seeing the show.”
We lay out the pros and cons and it’s up to them to take things away from it
CHRIS ATTFIELD West Sussex paramedic