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The annual event provides a series of activities over a ten-day period and has two distinct elements. Firstly, pupils aged 16-17 years from all schools in County Durham are invited to attend Aykley Heads Police Headquarters. These first two days of the event are dedicated to the Youth Offending Teams operating within the Force area and each day the young people are shown a thought provoking presentation delivered by a paramedic using video footage of real fatal collisions.
The second element of Wise Drive is designed to raise awareness through a variety of experiences about the potential dangers of driving and how to be responsible when behind a steering wheel. The young people attend several workshops, which are all, provided by specialist agencies and represent all aspects of driver and rider safety.
At the end of the course, all participants are presented with a certificate and given a package of gifts and information.
Wise Drive is run by the Durham Agency against Crime and young people are referred to the group from a variety of places including the Youth Offending Team, schools and Social Services throughout the County. The initiative received a grant of £900 from Northgate plc's Gold Darlington Champions fund to contribute towards running costs of the 2008 Wise Drive event.
Wise
Drive attracts the support of a large number of agencies and businesses in
County Durham such as Barclays Bank, British School of Motoring and DVLA,
all of which provide volunteers or materials for the event.
In 2007, the Wise Drive event helped around 7500 young people to benefit from
the project with schools throughout County Durham and Darlington being involved.
The event is hugely successful and is supported by both private and public
sector bodies. One of the teaching staff at Ferryhill College commented;
‘This is the fifth year that I have been and it continues to be most worthwhile for the students. It is informative and hard hitting. I look forward to being able to bring many more of our students to the event in future years.’
The event provides young people with valuable knowledge about road safety
and because of the groups links with Durham Constabulary, Wise Drive is able
to compare the county’s accident statistics in areas where the event
participants come from.
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