Since 2007, over 115,000 students in New Zealand have participated in the country’s largest, best practise road safety education programme, RYDA. At all of these workshops 7-8 different facilitators run interactive sessions with the students and each year NZ Steel, Road Safety Education’s (RSE) co-founding partner, recognises one of these facilitators for the outstanding contribution they make towards helping to save lives and reduce road trauma through their work.

On Monday 23rd September Palmerston North based facilitator Juliette Wilson was presented with this year’s NZ Steel Supporting Excellence Facilitator Award. Juliette, herself a victim in a road crash in 2005, takes leave from her full-time job to facilitate a crash investigation with students. Using her own lived experience as a case study she bravely helps students unpack her crash and helps them identify all the different crash factors which contributed to her injuries, enabling them to understand how crashes happen and come up with strategies to help avoid similar crashes happening to them.

Juliette has been assisting with the programme since 2015 facilitating RYDA sessions across the Lower North Island. "If I can change the mindset of just one rangatahi by sharing my story, then I’ve saved a life—one more than I had the day before speaking to them." She graciously accepted her award in front of over 50 parents attending a new parent programme (Drive Coach) also run by RSE and designed to support the RYDA youth programme.

RYDA, an evidence-led best practice programme, has been delivered to high school students in New Zealand since 2007, with over 115,000 students taking part since it began. RYDA is developed and provided by RSE, a not for profit and leading learning organisation operating throughout Australia and New Zealand. With a commitment to best practice in road safety education, their facilitators are highly trained and receive fantastic feedback from students and teachers alike.

NZ Steel has been a founding partner of RSE since 2007 and through their support have enabled the programme to expand from an initial few schools around Auckland to now reaching over 170 nationally from Kaitaia to Invercargill. As part of their partnership, they sponsor the NZ Steel Supporting Excellence in Road Safety Education Facilitator Award each year. Ms Vicki Woodley, Manager External Affairs says,” We would like to congratulate Juliette on her well-deserved award and thank her for her wonderful contribution over almost a decade. The impact of sharing her own personal story to raise awareness to help young people stay safe on our roads is truly amazing.

Youth road trauma in NZ

In the past 5 years the 15-19 year old group continue to be over-presented in the overall road trauma statistics. Below is road deaths for the past 5 years for 15-19 year olds.

Drivers are at their highest risk of being involved in a crash during their first year of driving unsupervised. A range of factors have been linked to the higher rate of injuries and deaths caused by young drivers. These include driver inexperience, risky driving behaviours such as speeding, driving while fatigued, driving without a seatbelt and driving smaller and/or older vehicles with fewer safety features. The risk of crashing diminishes with experience plus the development of decision-making and resilience skills so they can recognise risky situations and make safer choices.

RYDA aims to address this over-representation of youths in general, through targeted, customised learning that addresses attitudes to road use, and creates positive normative behaviour in youths right at the time they are preparing for driving themselves, and are more likely to be the passengers of novice drivers.

The RSE’s facilitators ability to bring this to life for students and positively engage with them so they adopt behaviour change strategies going forward is critical to them getting the best outcomes from the programme. The NZ Steel Supporting Excellence Facilitator Award is a great way they can recognise excellence and celebrate the efforts of the more than 100 different facilitators who assist with the programme.

About RSE and the RYDA programme

RYDA is Australasia’s largest and longest running road safety education program for high school students. Since 2001, over 800,000 students have participated in the program, including over 115,000 in New Zealand since 2007. RYDA aims to empower students with the strategies, tools and resilience to make good decisions on the road, as both drivers and passengers. For more information, www.rse.org.nz or email NZ General Manager Maria Lovelock on maria@rse.org.nz

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