Road safety classes have been a firm fixture on the Transition Year timetable in St Colman’s College for many years. Each group in Transition Year has a 40 minute road safety class weekly which aims to educate students about various aspects of road safety.
Ms Claire McCarthy has delivered this class to hundreds of students over the years and believes that it is vital that all students get an opportunity to learn about road safety before they get on the road.
So far this year the students have started a road safety notice board within the school as well as raising awareness of the EU Vision ZERO road safety plan. To highlight this safety plan all 132 first year students recreated the Vision ZERO slogan on the college lawn. Later this year the RSA road safety shuttle will visit the school and they are also planning a road safety week as well as presentations to younger class groups.
Claire has seen first-hand the benefit of these classes and believes that it should be taught in every school in the country as she says: “While getting ready to drive is a very exciting time for young people it also comes with great responsibility and education has a huge part to play in this”.
The program addresses topics such as dangers of speeding, importance of seatbelts and the dangers of driver distractions. The key message is to take responsibility for their own safety. Students also get guidance on preparing for the driver theory test and presentations from local Gardaí.
This year there has been a 25% increase in road deaths compared to this time last year and a third of these are young people under the age of 25. When the students started their road safety classes towards the end of August, 120 people had lost their lives on Irish roads. Just 4 weeks later this figure is 136. While we can become desensitized to statistics the sad fact is there is a human face behind each of these fatalities and the classes also address this.
