Student-focused road safety classes from TTC aim to cut young driver casualties

Interactive Young Driver Workshop for schools provides potentially life-saving skills to prepare young people for learning to drive

Young drivers are devastatingly overrepresented in collision statistics in the UK, with one in five crashing within their first year of driving and over 1,500 killed or seriously injured each year. Responding to the clear need for road safety education for young people, TTC Group is pioneering classroom and virtual road safety workshops for students as young as 15 years old.

The 2.5-hour workshops, which take place at participating schools, cover vital topics such as the importance of and laws surrounding seatbelts, understanding drink/drug driving and managing distractions. Whilst hosted by schools and colleges the workshops are facilitated by a professional DBS checked TTC driver trainer in person or in a virtual classroom. The trainer will fully engage all participants to maximise the learning experience, drawing out their views and opinions.

“This interactive workshop is designed specifically to encourage students to engage with the subject of driving safety,” explained Andy Wheeler, Training Product Manager at TTC. “The session includes insight into four fatal areas of concern; excess speed, mobile phone use, drink and drug driving and lack of seatbelt use. Pupils are actively encouraged to ask the trainer questions and gain valuable knowledge on a valuable future life skill.

“Road safety is not on the national curriculum, but it is a vital topic which has a significant impact on drivers, passengers and other road users. We are helping schools, colleges and other organisations to proactively help reduce the number of young driver fatalities and collisions in their local community and wider. We believe teaching road safety to young adults whilst they are still in an existing educational environment, will provide the next generation of road users a potentially life-saving set of practical skills before leaving school, giving them a head start into being safer and better drivers in the future.”

At the end of the workshop, pupils will be able to:

Recognise the dangers inherent to their age group, what incidents they are likely to be involved in and how the fatal four can have an impact on their driving
Develop a strategy for the reduction of driver distraction including mobile phone use, peer pressure and eating and drinking
Explain the benefits of adopting a speed-aware action plan and how to identify varying speed limits in the absence of any signs
Understand the dangers inherent in drug and drink driving, absorption rates and potential consequences of conviction
Understand the dangers inherent in not wearing a seat belt. Who is responsible and the consequences for not wearing one
Develop a safe driving strategy as they move towards taking lessons and developing a skill they will retain for life