The Rotary Youth Driver Awareness (RYDA) program, co-run by the Rotary Clubs of Ayr and Home Hill, aims to reduce road crashes among young drivers through road safety education. Conducted annually, the program involves six sessions over a day, covering topics like Drive SOS, Mind Matters, Speed & Stopping, and Road Choices.
It targets Year 11 students, who are either on a learner's permit or about to obtain one, to educate them on responsible driving and passenger behaviour. Over the past decade, the program has significantly reduced road fatalities among young people in the Burdekin area.
Tony Goddard, Rotary Coordinator for RYDA in the Burdekin spoke about the program, highlighting its importance and success.
“Rotary Club conduct the RYDR program every year. It's run by Road Safety Education, however, in these smaller communities we deliver the program on behalf of them. We engage six to eight facilitators, while the program revolves over one day with six sessions, each lasting 30 minutes,” Tony says.
“RYDA concentrates on year 11 students, and the reason for that is that they're the ones that are either on a learner's permit or about to obtain a learner's permit and or a provisional license. What we're trying to do is make them aware of the various choices they can make when driving a vehicle or being a passenger in one, in an effort to reduce serious road crashes, including fatalities,” Tony states.
Getting into the car as a novice driver or as a passenger of a novice driver, is said to be among the most dangerous things a person will do in their lives. Young Australians continue to be over-represented in road trauma statistics with 17-25-year-olds making up 10% of the population but representing a much greater percentage of all driver and passenger fatalities.
“While this statistic is better than it was 10 years ago, this still means that 230 young people died on Australia roads last year and approximately 10 times that number were seriously injured,” Tony laments.
“Thankfully, with this program that has been running in the Burdekin for about 10 years now, we’ve seen that there's been a massive decrease in the number of fatalities involving young people in road crashes compared to what there used to be.”
Thanks to the success of RYDA, countless lives have been saved as a result. Here’s to its continued success.
The dummy used to highlight speed and stopping distance. Photo credit: Mark T. Rasmussen
Students watch on as they witness the RYDA program speeding vs stopping test. Photo credit: Mark T. Rasmussen
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