King Country secondary school students learn about safe following distances from Road Safety presenter Albert Lionheart, left, and see what can happen to a pedestrian "dummy," below, if they are travelling too fast and brake too late. PHOTOS: SIGRID CHRISTIANSEN
One hundred King Country secondary students met for a road safety day at the Les Munro centre on Monday.
Students from Te Kūiti High School, Ōtorohanga College and Piopio College heard presentations by the RYDA Road Safety Education team, which is responsible for the Central North Island area.
They examined a car and learned about its road safety rating, and checked out a crash dummy hitting the windscreen of a braking car.
Ōtorohanga College’s Gateway and Pathways coordinator Melanie Wilken said the day was a valuable opportunity for students.
“[They] learned a lot about being aware of what goes on around them when driving,” she said.
The dummy exercise had been useful to show students the real consequence of breaking road rules, and not looking out for hazards, she said.
Melanie said the events had not taken place in the past few years because of Covid and it was great to have the RYDA team back.
The day was run by Michaela de Vantier, Central North Island co-ordinator for RYDA Road Safety Education.
“The students were really interactive and very engaged, which we always get from rural centres, but in particular today,” she said.
Michaela said her organisation tweaked their material when they had a primarily country audience.
“Rural students have a lot of experience behind the wheel before they get their license,” she said. This helped the students get a head start on vehicle handling.
“So, we try to emphasise the fact that we’re actually talking about the things inside of them, the internal world that influences their decision making.
“We talk about [things like] if you finish a rugby game, and you have had the best time of your life and you’re excited and you’ve just won … when you get behind the wheel, all of that excitement can be distracting. The attention you put on all those memories takes your attention away from the road,” Michaela said.
Melissa Baars was one of the presenters. She helped explain material around why crashes happen, and how it is possible to prevent major injuries and deaths.
She does this work personally because of her own experiences, in particular a crash in 2020 on the road between Rotorua and Taupō.
“I had a car crash when I was 21, three years ago, which put me in a wheelchair. During that accident, I did not have a seatbelt on,” Melissa said.
She had been employed 120 hours a week at the time, driving tractors and also working part-time in a bar. She said participants found her story eye-opening.
“It makes them realise you don’t have to be young and dumb to have an accident,” she said.
“Crashes do happen.”
Another presenter, Albert Lionheart, said his workshop included material on safe following distances.
He said braking a car at 60km/h instead of 30km/h took four times the amount of space, not twice, as students might guess.
