Pupils against drunk driving

Press, 28 September 1988, Page 17

Pupils against drunk driving

Teenagers - to - teenagers is the buzzword of a new organisation emerging in New Zealand secondary schools. However, unlike most peer pressure trends, Students Against Driving Drunk has some very positive aims. Its objectives include helping eliminate the drunk driver and saving lives, alerting college students to the dangers of drinking and driving, to conducting community alcohol awareness programmes,. and organising peer counselling programmes to help students who may have concerns about alcohol. Tracey Richards, until recently a senior student at Cashmere High School, read about S.A.D.D. in a magazine earlier this year. She decided to enlist the help of a teacher to try and get the programmes started in her own school. “A lot of people thought we might have trouble getting students interested, and a lot of the kids said ‘hey, we don’t need it’.”

In spite of some doubts, the first meeting in early June saw some strong interest. The school now has 40 S.A.D.D. members. The young 'people believe that the death of a former pupil in a road accident early this year brought the issue home to the school’s students. Tracey also had a cousin killed in a car accident last year. As part of S.A.D.D., parents and teenagers are asked to sign a contract called “A Will to Live.” The contract says that if called, a parent would go and collect a teenager at any time, any place, with no questions, and no argument at that time, or else they would organise a taxi for the safe return of the young person. A teen-

ager would respond to any similar request from a parent. Cashmere High students say their parents thought the scheme was a good idea, although most of them already had a similar understanding with their teenagers. They say many young people are assuming a more responsible attitude. Roster systems whereby one person in a group of friends will not drink on a particular night so they are able to drive home, are becoming common. “If you can get less people driving drunk it makes the roads a lot safer for everyone, because it is not always the drunk driver who suffers in an accident,” says one of the S.A.D.D. participants! Another comments that although not all drunk

drivers are young people, those with more driving experience have more control behind the wheel. The students say that the new system for obtaining a driver’s licence has put many young people off getting their licence because of the effort required. “I think it is a good thing if it puts them off the road for a few years because 15 is very young, and you don’t realise what a lethal machine you are driving.” The same youth admits that he once drove a car after having a few too many beers. “You lose concentration really easy. You think, you are going in a straight line and it is just the road that’s moving.” The group say there are some young people, especially male students, who call them killjoys. Asked whether enough is being done to deter drinking and driving, one youth suggests that guided tours of accident sites by the M.O.T. could be effective, or alternatively, showing young people photographs of accident scenes and injured victims. Tracey says that the television advertisement showing young people “driving themselves to the gravestone” was also scary and graphically illustrated the results of mixing drinking and driving. All the S.A.D.D. participants agree that more funding is needed to get the scheme started in more schools and to launch a major publicity campaign in the wider community. "It’s students-on-students — using reverse peer pressure. If we can start people our. age getting into the habit of not driving drunk, our generation can change the future.”

‘You don’t realise what a lethal machine you are driving’