On Tuesday, our Year 12 students attended the RYDA road safety education programme at The Trusts Arena run by Road Safety Education Ltd. RYDA's mission is to save lives through the provision of road safety education to youth to help them be active, responsible road citizens. By attending the one day workshop, the goal is that our students will have increased awareness of the importance of making responsible choices and be safer on our roads, both as drivers and passengers. 

Throughout the day students attended different workshops learning about how factors such as fatigue, distractions and speed can all play a part in causing accidents and how a car's safety features can help minimise the severity of an accident.  Our students had the privilege of hearing first-hand from a crash survivor, who spoke about her experience of her life altering crash at 100 km/h caused by fatigue in a car with minimal safety features.  Seeing and hearing about her life-long impacts was very sobering.

The importance of complying with the restrictions on learner and restricted driver licences (and how having friends in the car increases the chances of a crash) was emphasised as was having the courage to speak up if they feel unsafe in a car. The practical driving demonstration of stopping distances at different speeds was an eye opener, showing just how much harder it is to stop when you are driving even just a few kilometres over the speed limit. Most students were shocked to see what a safe two-second following distance actually looks like.            

We hope this sparks some good conversations at home about road safety and safe driving.  

We would also like to acknowledge and thank RYDA's sponsors who provide the financial support that enabled all our students to attend: Rotary New Zealand, the Henderson Rotary Club, Foundation North, The Trusts Community Foundation, COGS Waitakere City, BOC, New Zealand Steel, Bridgestone, VTNZ and Toyota.