Notre Dame and multiple other schools travelled to Dorking Halls on Monday 10th November to hear the life changing message that Surrey Services’ had to share, along with people affected by car crashes, ‘Safe Drive and Stay Alive.’ The event is a series of live educational performance events, which feature the live speakers- who are not actors- along with film clips that help raise awareness of how dangerous cars can be.

The Safe Drive scheme has educated over 92, 000 Surrey teenagers, this year in particular is very special to the scheme as they are marking their 10 years of Safe Drive Stay Alive in Surrey. It is a remarkable achievement and an estimated 13,000 young people will have attended one of this year’s 19 performances. This culminates to the total number of students attending the events to 105,000 across 174 performances since April 2005.

Chief Fire Officer for Surrey Fire and Rescue Service says, “This year we are proud to be marking 10 years of Safe Drive Stay Alive in Surrey, bringing the total attendance to 105, 000 since 2005.”

The emotive and engaging recollection of events of road traffic collisions demonstrate the effects they have, both short and long term, on the person involved and the people around them. The students are given the opportunity to hear and listen to the thought provoking performances of people who work in the road traffic collision occupation, such as the paramedics, and witness the pain it is for them to have to tend the scene of another young person injured or dying in a road collision accident. The event is fundamental for the students to hear as the statistics of young people injured in road collisions is far too high; in the last three years in Surrey 3,871 young drivers have been involved in injury collisions resulting in 267 young drivers or passengers being killed or seriously injured. Thus, one in four young drivers are involved in a collision within 12 months of passing their driving test. These statistics demonstrate the necessity for this scheme so that it can create awareness on the dangers of the road.

The message the speakers spoke was significant and the constant question being asked throughout the event was so simple yet tremendously thought provoking; ‘Is it worth it?’ The question brought you to the realisation that it could happen to anyone and at any time. One of the speakers finalised his account through telling the audience of an event, where a boy sent a four word text and the cost of this was…four people’s lives. You think to yourself, is it really worth to risk your life and those around you purely to send a 4-word text message. Hearing the accounts of these events managed to bring the audience to the realisation of how dangerous a car can be and how reckless behaviour can cost the lives of not just you but all those around you.

The scheme has made a massive difference and ‘from 2004 to 2013, the annual number of road deaths in Surrey
has fallen from 56 to 12, with killed or seriously injured falling from 510 to 356.’

As a whole, the event was engaging and emotive. It achieved its sole aim by ensuring that young people realise the severity of what COULD happen and that you have to remind yourself that it CAN happen if you are not careful. The event provided the students with wristbands and a car sticker to ensure that the message was not to be forgotten, and to remember...

                                                    ‘Is it worth it?’

                                           ‘Safe Drive and Stay Alive.’

 

In the next few weeks a promotional film - based around this year's performances - will be added to the website. To find out more about the events and the people involved, visit:

 

http://www.surreycommunity.info/safedrivesurrey/

 

Christina Hobday, Notre Dame Senior School