Consultation on road safety initiative that features Press’s hard-hitting film (From York Press)

Consultation on road safety initiative that features Press’s hard-hitting film

9:18am Monday 30th June 2008

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A ROAD safety initiative which incorporates The Press campaign against joy-riding is going out to consultation in Yorkshire tomorrow.

The Press reported in March how our hard-hitting Live Now, Drive Later film would be used as part of a national safe driving initiative.

Road Safety Minister Jim Fitzpatrick said the Government was developing a new “safe driving for life strategy,” which aimed to deliver a fundamental reform in all aspects of learning to drive – including pre-driver education.

He said it was committed to extensive research on appropriate materials, and would be pleased to include the Live Now, Drive Later film in the research work.

He asked for a copy of the DVD to be sent to his office.

Now the Driving Standards Agency (DSA) is starting a national consultation on the strategy aimed at overhauling driver testing and training and making Britain’s roads safer.

The initiative has also won big-name backing from Formula One racing star David Coulthard.

The Government wants road users to speak to the DSA during a four-month nationwide consultation tour in a bid to collect public thoughts on safer driving.

There is a regional consultation at the Marriott Hotel, in Leeds, tomorrow, starting at 6pm. People can also take part in the consultation process and air their views on a discussion forum at: www.dsa.gov.uk/learningtodrive.

Views and ideas will be gathered and fed directly back to policy makers.

A spokeswoman said that in 2006, 877 adults were killed or seriously injured in North Yorkshire with 161 of those occuring in York. A total of 56 children were killed and seriously injured in North Yorkshire, including 12 in York.

Live Now, Drive Later was launched last year after an inquest heard how two teenagers and a Press van driver all died in a head-on collision in Stockton Lane in April, 2006.

One of the teenagers, aged only 15, had taken his father’s car without permission and driven round York at high speed until he lost control and crashed into the van.

The 13-minute film, which was produced by Christopher David, of York film-makers Flash Frame Productions, features interviews with people affected by joy riding, including relatives of those killed in the Stockton Lane crash.

But it also features a hard-hitting fictional dramatisation of how a teenage boy takes his parents’ car and then suffers horrific injuries in a crash.

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