A new road safety workshop will encourage Ballarat teens to make the right choices when they get behind the wheel of a car.
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Fit to Drive Foundation chairman John Keysers said getting young people safely on the road was about more than just learning how to drive a car.
“It’s not just teaching young people to drive more safely, but to make better decisions about all road use. For example, don’t get in to a car if your mate is too tired, or how to let a friend know they shouldn’t get on a motorbike, and these are areas that are often not addressed in traditional road safety courses,” Mr Keysers said.
For the first time the Fit to Drive Foundation will run one of its Smarter Moves workshops through a sporting club, with Redan Football Netball Club hosting a workshop for its young players and their parents next week during National Road Safety Week.
And unlike other road safety workshops, attendees won’t be “lectured to” by experts but will take part in small group discussions with trained facilitators who are generally second year university students.
“These workshops are about influencing positive behaviour, rather than saying don’t do this or don’t do that as most people, and teens in particular, don’t want to be told what to do,” Mr Keysers said.
And parents will take part separately with a discussion on their own on how best to guide their young drivers as they explore the developmental stages of young people.
Mr Keysers said the joint sessions encouraged open discussion to plan strategies for safe travel for young people whether they were passengers, pedestrians, cyclists or drivers, and the development of individual safe travel agreements where young people and their parents/carers agree on strategies to ensure safer travel.
Redan FNC president Brett McKinnis said it made sense for the club to promote road safety.
“As a junior football netball club we’ve got a captive audience of teenagers learning to drive and starting to drive, and we don’t want to see them become a statistic down the track,” Mr McKinnis said.
“As a club we reckon we can be an influence on the behaviour of our players. We talk a lot about our code of conduct and behaviour and see it as an extension of that.”
To mark National Road Safety Week, the four faces of the Town Hall clock will light up yellow as part of the Shine a Light on Road Safety community awareness campaign for road safety – one of several prominent buildings across Australia that will be coloured yellow for the week.
On Friday, motorists are encouraged to turn on their headlights to demonstrate a commitment to road safety.