Northern Joint Police Board

25 November 2011

I spoke on the standing agenda item entitled ‘Community Safety’ which is the regular report on statistics across the Command Area,

Every quarterly report carries stats of accidents involving young people either killed or severely injured and often these accidents involve multiple casualties.

I treat this issue very seriously and since elected in 2007 have been working closely with colleagues in the both the emergency and education services looking at different ways to reduce avoidable accidents and help our young drivers drive more safely.

Our initiative, Driving Ambitions North, targets every senior pupil in Caithness, Sutherland and Tain. It is our wish that it can be rolled out across the entire Highlands and Islands area.

Over the past 3 years Driving Ambitions North has gone from strength to strength with every 6 year pupil in Caithness, Sutherland and Tain taking part.

This is good but we are conscious that there are many more young drivers who miss out because they leave school to work or further education and we are looking at how we can offer DA to them also.

We are now actively seeking ways to address this.

A new addition to this year DA programme has been the Seat Belt Convincer a machine which replicates the impact of a crash.

Over a 3 month period over 800 people in the north have tried it out and are left in no doubt of the value of wearing a seatbelt in terms of reducing injury and saving lives.

Over the past year I have been in contact with a range of lobbying and pressure groups which have set themselves up as a natural consequence of the loss of, or avoidable injury to, a young person.

There is enormous energy and drive out there which people want to put to good use.

I believe it is very important to harness and co-ordinate all the different groups and develop a stronger young driver safety message for young people not only in our own area but across Highland and further.

At the Board Meeting I requested that a Working Group be set up to get the key people round the table to get this in hand without further delay.

Too many lives have been turned upside down and it is important that we work together to do what we can to help young people drive more safely.