Award winning schools program – Survive Your Drive!
Senior Constable Lee Chamberlain from Cairns Forensic Crash Unit collecting the 2017 Queensland Road Safety Schools Award for their Survive Your Drive Program
The 2017 Queensland Road Safety Awards and Community Engagement Workshop was held in Bargara near Bundaberg on last week as part of Queensland Road Safety Week.
Local road safety program, Survive Your Drive, was announced as the winner of the 2017 Queensland Road Safety Schools Award.
Survive Your Drive was an initiative of the Cairns Forensic Crash Unit (FCU) and aimed at one of the most vulnerable groups, 15-25 year olds.
This program educates young people about what happens when things go wrong on the road and challenges bad driving behaviour when in a vehicle.
The initiative was a new concept and a direct relationship between the Queensland Police Service and Youth Justice to actively engage young offenders.
The program continues to evolve and has now spread into schools and is incorporated within a Motor Vehicle Offending Program.
In late 2016, eight young offenders were presented the Survive Your Drive program. To date, only one has reoffended. This equates to an 87.5 per cent reduction in the group offending rate.
FCU officers use their own personal accounts from Fatal crashes, shocking educational videos and a triple zero recording of CPR being performed on a road crash victim as they endeavour to get their message out to young people and show them what happens when it all goes wrong.
The presenting officers, place a strong emphasis on distracted driving and in particular the use of mobile phones which seems to be popular with the school aged demographic.
For more information about the program, contact Chamberlain.LeeJ@police.qld.gov.au.
Source: Cairns Crime Alert
