Teenagers educated on driver and passenger safety with dramatic performance

Year 9 students recently watched a performance about Road Safety and the dangers of not wearing a seatbelt.

‘#YOLO’ is a play from Performance in Education, created to show teenagers the risks of injury and death in road traffic collisions.

The play focuses on not only the victims who are injured or killed when not wearing a seatbelt, but the effect that their death can have on their loved ones.

The objectives of the play are to help students understand the effect that their own attitude and behaviour as a passenger, has on the driver. It reiterates the importance of wearing a seatbelt gives them a greater knowledge of the consequences of anti-social driving.

The performance is supported by Safer Roads Humber. Road Safety Team Education Assistant from EQUANS, Alison Sopcote commented: “It is interesting to see how the actors get the message across to students in a way that they can understand.

The performance follows the death of Sam, a student who has died after a road traffic accident. His sister, Becky and his father struggle to come to terms with the accident, as well as his friend, Pete, who was driving the car.

Alison added: “The impact of the story makes the students go away and think. A lot of these students are coming up to driving lesson age and it just helps them to understand some of the statistics a little better and how they can keep themselves, drivers and passengers safer on the roads.”

The project describes all of the ways in which a driver and a passenger can create risks when driving, for example, the passenger was pressuring the driver to go faster, turning up the radio and taking videos for social media. It also shows the effect of peer pressure and name calling resulting in the driver going faster and eventually crashing the vehicle.

The actors encouraged the Year 9 students to examine their own attitudes and behaviours when travelling in a vehicle. 95% of students say that the show makes them think about the effects of risk-taking behaviour on the roads.

The play was concluded with an interactive Q&A session, allowing the students to reflect on what happened in the play and why.

Performance in Education then showed a real-life case of a young girl, who had taken her seatbelt off to take a photo for Instagram. Minutes after, the car crashed and the girl was killed. Her three friends wore their seatbelts, and survived.

The students were shown facts about laws of driving, facts and figures on the survival rates when wearing a seatbelt and were then quizzed on these facts, competing in teams to score the highest points. Both teams got every question right.

Vice Principal at Cleethorpes Academy, Paul Kaylow said: “We’ve done these plays before, and it’s been very successful each time with student’s giving positive feedback afterwards.

It’s an interactive way to demonstrate road safety risks locally and in a more relative manner to the students. It also helps to expand on their personal development looking at empathy and the consequences of dangerous driving to family and friends.”