Up to 600 attend road safety event organised by local students
A road safety event held last week in Athlone that was organised by young people in Westmeath for other young people attracted an attendance of approximately 600
The 35-strong Comhairle na nÓg arranged for a range of state agencies, speakers, and emergency services providers to attend the demonstration at the Athlone Town stadium on Monday, September 19.
"The road safety event was targeting all the secondary schools across Westmeath, and it was the second time we have staged this," said Annette Barr Jordan of Westmeath County Council, the coordinating body for Comhairle na nÓg. "There are 14 secondary schools and 13 of them were able to attend and we also had all the agencies there.
"It was about educating young people with regard to how to use roads; how to use the footpaths; how to cycle; how to care for themselves; how to ensure that they don’t cause a crash or end up in a crash, and what the risk factors are, what the mitigating factors are.
"The day was made up of a multitude of different things: we had guest speakers from the guards, from the Road Victims Support Agency, from solicitors, and that was backed up by a demonstration of a car crash."
Through that, the young people were able to see the work that is required of the emergency services teams at the scene, and to add to the feeling of authenticity, actors were brought in from TUS Athlone.
"We had an ambulance on site and we even had the air ambulance in attendance as well," says Annette.
Through that episode, the youngsters were able to witness the steps that are taken to establish if a motorist was driving while under the influence of drink or drugs.
They also got a firm understanding of what the consequences are if they take their eyes off the road for a second, or get distracted by their mobile phones.
"They also saw what can happen if there is too much music or, too many distractions in the car – and it was also informing them that you really should not be getting into a vehicle with somebody who you feel isn’t capable of being able to handle themselves either. So it was not just about themselves as drivers, but also about being passengers, and also pedestrians and cyclists," says Annette.
The Road Safety Authority was also in attendance and there was participation by the county council’s transport section and the drugs taskforce, the bloodbank and Motorsport Ireland, which demonstrated the lengths competition drivers go to in keeping themselves safe.
Support for the event came from media partner Celtic Media Group (which the Westmeath Independent is part of) and from Iarnród Éireann, which donated prizes.
Annette paid tribute to the members of Comhairle na nÓg for their work in organising the event, "Comhairle na nÓg is the voice of young people, so it’s representative of different clubs, different schools, different organisations across the county.
"They were the planning group and they brought the agencies on board then."
They also did a lot of the administrative and stewarding work at the event, including registering the attendees as they arrived.
Environment
Organising the road safety event is just one of the big tasks the youngsters on Comhairle na nÓg have on their schedule of work for this year, Annette says.
"The next piece of work they have ahead is looking at the environment, looking at climate change and putting a document together for primary schools," she says.