The facts
Client: Blaenau
Gwent County Borough Council, Caerphilly County Borough Council,
Monmouthshire County Council, Newport City Council, Torfaen County
Borough Council
Location: South East Wales
Services: Road Safety Education
Sector: Road Safety
Start/Completion: 1995 - Ongoing
The project
Mega Drive is a pre-driver education
programme for Colleges of Further Education in South East
Wales. First run in 1995, it is a recipient of the Prince
Michael of Kent Award for Road Safety. Evaluation on several
levels has shown that Mega Drive is a very effective method of
developing a positive attitude to the responsibility of driving a
car.
Each two and a half hour session begins with
an interactive introduction attended by all students followed by up
to nine workstations that include the following topics:
- alcohol
- drugs and driving
- crash causation and risk
- immediate first aid
- buying a used car
- cockpit-drill
...as well as practical driving with an
Approved Driving Instructor in a dual controlled car.
At the end of the session, all students will
complete an interactive evaluation. All workstations are designed
and staffed by experts in their field (for example, Road Safety and
Fire and Rescue Officers, The Red Cross, Drug Prevention Agencies,
Trading Standards, the Institute of Advanced Motorists and Approved
Driving Instructors (ADIs).
Students visit workstations in groups of three
(except practical driving where it is one-to-one with an ADI),
after 15 minutes they move on to the next workstation.
Mega Drive can only take place because staff
from a wide variety of voluntary and statutory agencies work in
partnership, with their organisations paying for their time;
however despite this contribution Mega Drive still costs over
£1,000 for three days. This is funded by the Wales Assembly
Government via the relevant local authority as they believe it can
help reduce the risk of young people being injured in a road
traffic crash.
Capita Symonds Road Safety Team in
Gwent were involved in the inception of
Megadrive. Currently the team provide the main pre-event and
on-site organisation and logistics and Road Safety Officers staff
at least three of the interactive workstations.
Megadrive began in the Gwent
Police region in 1995. Since then it has been adopted in
some form in the other three Welsh Police force areas and by
several English authorities.