Young people call for more road safety classes in schools

The inaugural meeting of the new Road Safety Youth Forum was held at the Ombudsman for Children’s office in Dublin.

It has been convened by the Road Safety Authority (RSA) to enable the participants to identify and discuss common issues of concern on the roads affecting young people.

A total of 20 people, aged between 12 and 25 and from around the country, attended the forum, which is to meet four times a year.

One of the aims of the representative group is to agree on safety topics, which the forum will investigate and champion.

The members were nominated by a number of youth organisations, while others were invited to participate based on road safety related projects they had carried out.

RSA chair Liz O’Donnell said she believed “it is important that we include younger generations on road safety concerns, solutions and initiatives”.

She said the forum was also an opportunity to influence decision making and that “suitable recommendations brought forward by the groups will be brought to senior management in the RSA for discussion and potentially to other organisations”.

So far this year, 70 people have died in incidents on the roads, 17 more than the same time last year.

Ms O’Donnell said younger people have been a very high-risk category over the last few years.

“Already this year, a third of the fatalities have been young people aged 16 to 25.

“They are also experiencing trauma because they are losing some of their friends and family in road crashes, so we want to hear from them.”

She said the RSA wants to “understand what is motivating young people as drivers, and as passengers, and as road users generally”.

One member of the youth forum, 16-year-old Amy Cowman from Co Wicklow, described the initiative as “a brilliant idea to get young people’s opinions”.

She said she would like to see classes on road safety in all schools.

“In my school when we’re in TY we have road safety class once a week. I think it would be very beneficial to bring a road safety class into every year and to more schools.”

Another participant, 16-year-old Meera Vithaldas from Kinsale, Co Cork, said “young people bring new ideas” and she said she “can’t believe it was only set up recently, I think it should have been something for a long, long time”.

She hoped the forum can help to reduce deaths and crashes on the roads because “it has been so terrifying lately how many there have been happening.”

While 18-year-old Orlaith Heaney from Claremorris, Co Mayo said she believed it was really important to hear from young people.

She said she was particularly focused on rural road infrastructure and how it could be made safer with small fixes such as the use of signage and lighting.

“At this point, most people know someone quite young that has died in a car accident or has been in a car accident and that’s quite a scary feeling for some young people on the road,” she added.

For 16-year-old Jack Fagan from Co Longford, his main priorities were the issues of speeding and dangerous driving and he said it was important young people were educated at an early age on risky behaviour.

“There are people that think, ‘mammy and daddy are speeding, so I can speed as well’, but that’s not how it works. The same with texting on a phone. ‘Mammy and daddy might text on the phone, so I can text on the phone’, but that’s not how it works. That’s how injuries happen.”

Ben Neville, 16, from Co Wicklow said he was taking part in the youth forum to try to make the roads safer for young people like himself.

“At the end of the day, these laws that are being made are affecting us and our future and I want to be a part of that,” he said.

Ben also said he does not believe young people fully understand the risks and dangers involved in driving on the roads.

He also said he would like to see classes on road safety “being taught in every year, even starting from the end of primary school”.