Notts County Football Club has joined forces with Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service to help drive forward a new initiative to keep young and learner drivers safe on our county’s roads.
Dean Leacock and Gary Liddle were cut free from a staged car wreckage by firefighters in a bid to demonstrate what could happen when drivers act carelessly and without regard for their passengers or other road users.
The event marked the launch of a new initiative in Nottinghamshire, which aims to educate and challenge new learner drivers about their risk of being involved in a crash.
The Honest Truth initiative sees Nottinghamshire Road Safety Partnership working closely with local approved driving instructors who engage with their students on a range of risk factors including speeding, using a mobile phone while behind the wheel, not wearing seat belts and driving while under the influence of drink or drugs.
The initiative aims to change attitudes and behaviours around driving, particularly in young or new drivers, to reduce the number of incidents on our roads.
Nottingham City station manager Dave Stevenson said: “The 17-24 age group makes up just 10 per cent of the population, yet they account for half the number of injuries sustained in road traffic collisions between the hours of 10pm and 5am.
“We want to protect all drivers on our roads, but by targeting young or inexperienced drivers through their driving instructors we can ensure that they are receiving the right messages at the right time in their driving career, and hopefully those messages will stay with them for the rest of their lives.”
As well as real life case studies, The Honest Truth uses a series of animal personalities to demonstrate the dangers to young road users.
The ‘cheetah’ illustrates that it’s better to arrive five minutes late instead of ‘dead on time’, while the ‘parrot’ warns of the dangers of talking or texting on a mobile phone while driving.
Other animals including the ‘rhino’, ‘chimp’ and ‘peacock’ are used to highlight the hazards associated with not wearing seat belts, being distracted while driving or showing off in front of friends while behind the wheel.
Notts County captain Dean Leacock said: “This is obviously an important issue and it’s important that we get the message across to our fan-base, particularly the younger drivers that there are a number of risks whilst on the road.
“Hopefully by being involved in this demonstration we can get the point across to the wider community and help make the Nottinghamshire roads safer.
“The whole club are backing the Honest Truth campaign and hopefully we can do our bit to reduce the number of accidents across the county.”
SM Stevenson added: “We are extremely grateful to Notts County Football Club and its players for supporting this initiative and we hope this will be the start of many community projects that the Club and Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service can work on together, for the benefit of others.
“Road safety is important to us all and if we can minimise the number of deaths on our roads by raising awareness and working with our partners we will have achieved our aim.”
More information about the initiative, including a list of driving instructors who have signed up to it, is available at www.thehonesttruth.co.uk.
Look out for more on The Honest Truth on Magpie Player soon…