Road Safety Visit from Surrey Police

With many of our students at the beginning of their driving journey, our Head of Careers and Personal Development Jessica Fordyce organised for Police Constable Dave Curran and the Vanguard Road Safety Team to visit and share valuable information surrounding the importance of road safety.

The team explained that their aim is to ‘engage with young drivers’ to help prevent dangerous driving before they are ‘forced to enforce legal action’.  There was lots of useful information given to our students about the implications of driving under the influence of illegal substances, especially within the first 2 years of driving. This reinforced the reality that not only is it highly dangerous to both themselves and others, but they will also face severe consequences including losing their license and paying fines.

The Vanguard Team brought along marked and unmarked police vehicles for the students to look at, as well as a number of tasks and games to reiterate the importance of road safety. Students could wear a number of different goggles which simulated being under the influence of alcohol and illegal substances, they were then asked to complete a children’s puzzle. They found this took them far longer than it would if they were without the goggles. This task was used to show our students how uncoordinated they would be in this state, and certainly unable to drive a car!

With reports of many young people using their phones while they drive, the Vanguard Team aims to ensure our students understand how dangerous this can be. Students were asked to sit behind the wheel of the unmarked vehicle and press down on the brakes as quickly as possible once a red light flashed up in front of them. However, while they were waiting for the signal, a member of the team created distractions, such as asking them to check a text on their phone, to demonstrate the impact this has on their reaction time.

This visit was extremely engaging among our students with many of them taking part during their personal development sessions while others dropped by during their lunchtime. There was a great competitive energy among the students at the reaction time task and lots were surprised by the effects of the goggles on their coordination.