Young driver road safety. Reimagined.
In less than one hour, GoDrive offers new drivers and passengers the information, advice and practical tips they need to stay safe on the roads. Spread throughout the film are four interactive tasks, which help break up the session and get the group working together.
Not only is GoDrive based on the latest behavioural science, but it can also be delivered flexibly by educators within their own settings. Peer discussion has proven to be powerful tool for influencing young driver perspectives on road riskGoDrive leads group tasks from within the film itself, allowing teachers to sit back and oversee the activities.
QUICK START GUIDE
Suggested delivery: PHSE, small specific assembly, alternative curriculum day
Teacher-led participation: Four short tasks (details below)
Student audience size: 50 max
Duration: 1 hour max
Equipment needed: Either a whiteboar or flipchart and a big screen with sound. Students will need their mobile phones
WHAT DO I NEED TO DELIVER GoDrive IN MY SETTING?
The good news is that to deliver GoDrive, you’ll need nothing more than a whiteboard or flipchart, some kind of big screen with audio and of course, a group of students. The interactive tasks are led by the presenter, with a countdown timer so you’ll always know how long you have left.
Please note that the interactive tasks are very important, so it’s best to deliver GoDrive to groups of no more than 50. Any larger than this and it will be hard to collect responses in a way that makes everyone feel involved and to oversee the roleplays. Here are a few tips for delivering GoDrive in your setting:
GET THE LATEST VERSION
To ensure you’re delivering the most up-to-date version of GoDrive, please visit www.godrive.org.uk to download or stream the film.
CONSIDER SEATING
Two of the tasks involve writing down thoughts and ideas from the group on a whiteboard or flipchart. Time is limited for these tasks, so please be prepared to get your participants engaged as quickly as possible. 2
REGISTRATION
At the beginning of GoDrive, our presenter will ask everyone to take out their phones, scan a QR code and register their attendance. Please ensure that the group have access to their phones for this session. Participants will receive a monthly email following their attendance at GoDrive, with a refresher on each of the topics covered during the film. Research shows that regular ongoing communication is an effective way of prolonging the forgetting curve and helping participants remember important information in the weeks and months following GoDrive. Of course, students can opt out of follow-up emails at any time.
One of the interactive tasks involves a roleplay with a partner, where they will pretend to be sat next to each other in a car. Please ensure chairs can be moved to accommodate this.
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NO NEED TO PAUSE
GoDrive has been designed to allow enough time for each task without the need to pause. But if you have a longer session then you are welcome to pause and spend longer on the tasks or discuss the content.
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BE READY TO WRITE
FACILITATED TASKS
These four tasks are designed to break up the film and help viewers apply the content to their own lives. Here’s a breakdown of each task with the relevant timecode, including what each will require of the viewers and the facilitator.
Speed itself isn’t a killer, but it’s one of the biggest contributory factors in collisions and almost always, the severity of the outcome will be proportionate to the speed. New drivers with the least experience need longer to respond to hazards and if they drive too fast for the conditions (even if that’s under the speed limit) they are reducing their margin for error.
Research shows that people speed for many different reasons. We might be running late and trying to make up time, or perhaps we’re thrill seeking, showing off or responding to peer pressure. The purpose of this task is to help the group think of all the different reasons why people speed and then come up with coping strategies to defuse the risk. Using the ‘if, then’ solution, you can piece them together into actionable prompts: ‘If I am tempted to speed when under pressure from another driver following close behind me...then I will remind myself that speeding increases my fuel consumption, which is bad for the environment and costs me money.’
Falling asleep at the wheel often leads to the most severe collisions, because no braking or avoiding action is taken in the moments before impact. This can be a hard concept to grasp because everyone gets tired, but for young drivers with changing sleep patterns and competing pressures, fatigue is a major risk factor when it comes to driving.
This task walks viewers through a series of ten questions – for each one, participants should write down a number associated with their personal answer. At the end, they are asked to add up their total to get their own morningness/eveningness scale score (Carskadon et al, 1993). The maximum score is 42 (morning person) and the minimum is 10 (evening person). This exercise shows that whilst we all get tired (predictably so between 2am – 6am and 2pm – 4pm), everyone has natural tendencies, so it’s important to get enough sleep to be able to drive safely.
We all know that learning to drive and getting your first car brings freedom, opportunity and flexibility. But this doesn’t always mean the same to everyone. In this exercise we want to encourage the group to think about what becoming a driver would mean to them.
After a minute or so, you could ask them to consider the costs of learning to drive and getting on the road, including things like driving lessons, their first car and insurance. Then finally, encourage them to think about how they might feel if they lose their licence during their probationary period and how it would affect their newfound freedoms.
Almost everyone can relate to the scenario of feeling uncomfortable or even scared by someone’s driving. Yet whilst many experienced drivers have the confidence to speak out, young people are much more likely to keep quiet, especially if they are being given a lift and don’t want to fall out with the driver.
This task is all about empowering young people to speak up when they feel unsafe. Working in pairs, they will be asked to roleplay situations where there is a risk factor that needs to be addressed. It could be the driver needing to ask the passenger to put their seatbelt on, or perhaps the passenger feels unsafe because the driver is speeding or checking their phone.
The main learning point here is that you don’t need to get into an argument or create an atmosphere. This exercise will help the group think about how to act assertively and remove risks before a collision occurs.
