BOP Drink Drive Expo to send blunt message to students

Nearly 2500 senior school students from around the Bay of Plenty will be hit with a strong and blunt message when they attend a Drink Drive Expo in Tauranga in August.

The Expo will be held from 16 to 20 August and comes in the wake of three serious crashes involving young people in the Bay of Plenty in recent weeks, that left two young people dead, and more than a dozen seriously injured.

Sixteen hundred students from Te Puke High School, Mount Maunganui College, Aquinas College, Tauranga Boys College, Tauranga Girls College and Katikati College will attend the expo, along with more than 800 students from Rotorua and Whakatane secondary schools who will travel to the event.

Organiser Wendy Nicholls, from Blue Light Western Bay of Plenty, says the expo will "pull no punches", with inspirational guest speakers relaying experiences and decisions that had devastating consequences.

Speakers include Tamati Paul, a promising rugby player who is now living with the disabilities he received in a head-on crash with a drunk driver, and 'Ryan', who now has to live with the consequences of his actions as a drink driver. Students will also hear from Drug & alcohol counsellors about the possible effects of alcohol on their developing brains.

The presentations will be supported by displays from a range of different service providers who are impacted by drink drivers, including the Police Booze Bus, St Johns Ambulance and funeral directors.

The Expo is organised by Blue Light Western Bay of Plenty and was held for the first time in 2009.

Ms Nicholls says the reason for the Expo is simple – as a region, the Bay of Plenty features nationally as a community at risk for the number of fatal and serious injury crashes involving alcohol.

Last year in the Western Bay of Plenty, 30 per cent of crashes involved alcohol.

"That is one of the worse records in the country."

Ms Nicholls says last year's expo was a huge success, not only receiving very positive feedback from students, but also contributing to a decrease in the number of drink drive apprehension rates for young people in the six months after the event.

"For the six months after the Expo, there was a 34 per cent drop in the number of 15 to 17 year olds who were apprehended for drink driving.

"This decrease led to the cancellation of two offender programmes, which had previously had waiting lists of drink drive offenders waiting to attend. These were the courses that initially prompted the development of the preventative education expo.

"Unfortunately, this fantastic decrease has been let down by an increase in the number of 18 to 20 year olds apprehended for drink driving.

"However, we are confident that by running the Expo for at least three years, we will see this same reduction across the wider youth drink drive rates as more young people come through our programme."

Ms Nicholls says the aim of this year's Expo is to reach as many young people as possible with a strong and blunt message about the possible consequences of driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

"Our aim is to equip these students with the knowledge that will help them make informed decisions."

The Expo will consist of two sessions each day, as well as an evening session for parents and other members of the community on Thursday 19 August at 6.45pm. The Expo will be held at Classic Flyers, 8 Jean Batten Drive, Mt Maunganui.

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