Driving instructors in Shropshire are being invited to join the fire and rescue service, Safer Roads Partnership and local councils in a joint campaign aimed at cutting the number of road collisions involving young people.
The ‘Honest Truth Partnership’ was set up following the death of three young people in a road accident in Devon last year and since then the campaign has spread to many other areas of the UK. The basis of the campaign is to develop a relationship between those organisations working on road safety issues and local driving instructors, who are at the forefront of delivering key messages to young people before they take to the roads on their own.
Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service has written to scores of approved driving instructors across the county to explain how the ‘Honest Truth’ campaign works and the key role driving instructors play by including eight safety messages in driving lessons.
In Shropshire the fire and rescue service has joined forces with the Safer Road Partnership, Shropshire Council and Telford and Wrekin Council. Rybrook Mini is helping to promote the campaign with an ‘Honest Truth’ livered Mini.
“Young drivers are much more likely to be involved in collisions and one of the best ways to tackle that issue is to get safety messages across to young drivers as early in their driving lives as possible,” said Shropshire Fire and Rescue’s prevention manager, Rabinder Dhami.
“For most young drivers their first experience behind the wheel will be with an approved driving instructor and that’s why we are trying to get instructors to get involved in this campaign. They are in the best position to get these safety messages across.” Rabinder Dhami added.
Vicki Bristow, Communications Manager from the Safer Roads Partnership said: Over the past 3 years 133 people under the age of 25 have been injured in road traffic collisions and 13 killed. There are a number of initiatives and campaigns that we cover throughout the year to try and bring these numbers down but it’s great that we can work with our partner agencies in Shropshire on this new initiative to try and reduce the number of those killed and seriously injured on our roads.
Shropshire Fire and Rescue plans to run a series of training sessions on September 17 and 18 at its Shrewsbury headquarters in St Michael’s Street to explain the “Honest Truth” initiative to approved driving instructors.
For further information:
Rabinder Dhami,
Prevention Manager
Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service
Direct Line: 01782 260259
Mobile: 07967 465821
Email: rabinder.dhami@shropshirefire.gov.uk
or
Vicki Bristow
Communications Manager
Safer Roads Partnership
01905 331242
