Convincing young people about the importance of road safety is no easy task and we're well aware that anything that sounds like a lecture is likely to fall on deaf ears. However, we believe this is one of the key groups at which to target road-safety education. Road crashes are the biggest killer of 15- to 24-year-olds, and a disproportionately high number of crashes and casualties involve young drivers.
Through our 2 Young 2 Die programme, we train those delivering the sessions to use stories of real-life crashes to encourage young people to anticipate how they would feel if they were seriously injured and not able to continue living their normal lives, or if they were responsible for the death of a friend or relative.
We have found that many young people are more receptive when asked to think about the prospect of living with a disability or of a close friend dying, rather than about being killed themselves.
We also recognise the power of group pressure: making young people feel that others will disapprove if they behave dangerously. We recommend that young people are engaged in discussions about possible scenarios where they could be in danger – such as what would they say if they were a passenger and the driver was going too fast, or what would they do if their "designated driver" on a night out had a few drinks. Through these discussions, young people are encouraged to come up with their own strategies for staying safe.
Each year, our programme reaches thousands of young people but we believe that all young people should be given road-safety education as a matter of course. We need road-safety education to be made a compulsory part of the national curriculum, and we need a "graduated driver licensing" system, so young drivers develop their skills and experience gradually over time before becoming fully licensed.
We believe that these combined measures would have a marked impact on the unacceptable level of deaths and serious injuries involving young drivers – and create a safer driving culture in future years.
Julie Townsend is deputy chief executive of Brake, the independent national road-safety charity
