DRIVE TO STAY ALIVE:TY students at St John the Baptist CS in Limerick are working hard to keep their safe driving initiative on track
‘THE LAST TIME I saw him, he was running out the door for a night out.
He was his usual happy self, with a big smile on his face. I remember he grabbed his hair gel and skipped off. A few hours later, he was dead.”
Earlier this year, one mother in the town of Hospital, Co Limerick, buried her only child. His car accident was the latest in a series of disasters endured by this small community; since 1998, 10 pupils and past pupils of the local John the Baptist Community School have died on the roads.
Almost every pupil and teacher at the school has been deeply affected by the tragedies of the past decade, with two deaths last January taking a major toll. But their grief has been transformed into a positive statement of intent. In 2006, Transition Year at John the Baptist CS launched Drive to Stay Alive, a road safety campaign encouraging their peers to wear seatbelts, never drink and drive, and watch their speed. The TY group gives talks and provides information on road safety to some of the school’s younger students, as well as organising a Christmas card competition which will feature the Drive to Stay Alive logo.
The road safety campaign is also about honouring the memories of those who have died or been injured on the roads. On November 15th, which is World Remembrance Day for Road Crash Victims, the students will spill onto the streets with a deeply symbolic, silent message. “We’re asking students to write a message: something meaningful to them,” says Caitriona Ryan of the road safety club. “It can be a word of warning, remembrance of a loved one, or just sharing sympathy. The messages will be put in white balloons, and the balloons will be released to the skies.”
Raising awareness is one goal, while changing behaviour isanother. To this end, some TY students have been learning about the relationship between reaction time and stopping distance in their physics module, while another student is investigating how election posters may draw drivers’ attention from the road for a split second too long.
On a national level, the Axa Roadsafe Roadshow presents transition year students with the causes and consequences of negligence on the road. A
recent event at the Rochestown Park Hotel in Cork was attended by over 1,400 students, who heard from gardaí, paramedics, fire officers, doctors and a mother who lost two sons in an accident. The students also heard from Micilin Feeney, a 28-year-old who suffered a head injury in an accident on Halloween night five years ago.
“I’d been drinking and I drove home,” says Feeney. “I’d been at a football match and we went for a few pints. There was no other car, no other passengers, only me. When they pulled me from the car, I was in a coma for a months, and during that time, I lost a friend in a separate car accident. Then, I woke up and spent eight months in rehabilitation.
“I feel guilty about what I did. Drink driving was stupid, so I
tell others my story and try to get the message out: drive responsibly, and never get behind the wheel of a car with drink on you.”
drivefastdiefast.ie
