Loughborough College students watched firefighters cut their classmates free from a mangled car, in a hard-hitting exercise that brought them face to face with the Fatal 4.
Leicestershire Fire and Rescue and the Police road safety team joined Public Services at the College to highlight the high risk behaviour that can lead to fatal accidents, including the quartet of driving while using a mobile ‘phone, driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, not wearing a seatbelt and speeding.
The Safe Event included a dramatic demonstration with a roof sliced from a car and casualties, role-played by Loughborough College performing arts students, extracted from vehicles and brought out on long boards; the chance to wear ‘beer goggles’ and see the impact alcohol has on your reflexes and to don headphones and a visor for a virtual reality experience of a road traffic accident. A Network Rail film helped students see the potential outcome of playing chicken with trains and DPD showed what can happen if pedestrians, cyclist and motorists do not take precautions when they are in the blind spot of heavy goods vehicles.
Loughborough College public services lecturer Shaun Hession spent 25 years in the fire service and said: “I have had many personal experiences of being called out to accidents involving young people who can often be blasé about certain behaviours on the road. Many of our students have recently passed their driving test and they are in an age group at high risk of becoming victims of those behaviours, so it’s vital to make them aware of the dangers – even to scare them.
“The Safe Event enabled our students to get up close with, for example, what it feels and looks like to be in a car accident - with the VR goggles showing injured passengers around them and the demonstration letting them see fellow students have a crashed car cut up around them, as it might have to be to potentially save lives.
“It is interesting to see the transformation in our students as the reality hits home. If we help save even one life by doing this then it is worth it.”