Week to help young people stay safe on our roads
18 Nov 2019 ARCHIVED (over 3 months old) - view latest news
This is Road Safety Week 2019, and Northumberland County Council and Northumberland Fire and Rescue Service are joining schools and community groups across the county to highlight some important life-saving messages.
The UK's largest road safety event, coordinated annually by charity Brake, the week aims to inspire schools, organisations and communities to take action to make roads safer, and runs from 18 to 24 November.
Each year the week has a theme and this year everyone is asked to ‘Step up for Safe Streets’, which includes pledging to use roads safely, minimising vehicle use and focusing on local road safety issues.
Through the regional Schools Go Smarter campaign the council has helped to bring a theatre production which focuses on pedestrian safety to the county, funded through the Northumbria Safer Roads Initiative (NSRI).
‘Josh Green Posted on Your Wall’ is performed by drama company The Riot Act. It delivers a hard hitting message in a humorous way and confronts and explores the common issues and consequences of irresponsible pedestrian behaviour.
It uses multi-media and popular culture to help students understand the importance of staying safe on roads. It is fun and lively and takes learning out of the classroom and into an environment where pupils can interact with the performers and learn in a more engaging way.
The Schools Go Smarter theatre show is visiting 42 schools across the region to inform, educate and entertain secondary age students, and during Road Safety Week in Northumberland is visiting Northumberland C of E Academy in Ashington, Hexham Middle School and Newminster Middle School in Morpeth.
Also during November it will be at Dr Thomlinson Middle School in Rothbury, Bede Academy in Blyth, Chantry Middle School in Morpeth, Berwick Middle School and Cramlington Learning Village. In total it is reaching over 1,200 pupils in Northumberland and almost 15,000 across the region.
The show has been very well received, with students who have seen it saying:
“It made me think about the consequences of my actions.” and
“I loved the show. You made me realise how important safety is."
The council’s road safety team is also out and about during this week delivering 'Be Bright Be Seen' assemblies and classroom workshops, as well as an ongoing pedestrian training programme for primary schools.
Staff from Northumberland Fire and Rescue Service’s community safety department are visiting schools in the county to raise awareness of road safety risks.
At Cambois Primary School they are running a whole school assembly around road safety , followed by workshops with firefighters from Green Watch West Hartford on Thursday 21st November. Year 13 students at King Edward VI in Morpeth will also be involved with driver awareness sessions working with a crew from Pegswood on Tuesday 3rd December.
Paul Jones, service director for local services at Northumberland County Council said: “Every 20 minutes, someone is killed or seriously injured on a British road and each of these tragedies is preventable.
“Through work with schools by both the council and our fire and rescue service we want to raise awareness of the risks, and help young people to stay safe both now and throughout their lives.”