Congratulations and good luck to Year 12 student Finn Caske, who has been named as a finalist in the Hockey New Zealand Sky Sports Awards for the Outstanding Young Person of the Year Award. The awards celebrate those who have contributed to the hockey community in New Zealand in 2020, and winners will be announced at the Hockey New Zealand Annual Awards dinner on Friday, April 30. During 2020 Finn provided significant service to both PNBHS Hockey and Hockey Manawatū and it is great that this has been recognised at a national level.

Young men in Year 12 had the opportunity to complete the RYDA Road Safety programme recently. The day featured six interactive modules each focused on a different aspect of road safety and raising student awareness of the risks they face and the role they can play in keeping themselves, their family, friends and other road users safe.

Road Choices

Facts about road crashes. That the safest drivers – those who are involved in the lowest number of road crashes – are those on their Learner’s Licence. There is a significant and immediate rise in crashes once young people transition to their Restricted Licence.

The importance of attitude when driving – be defensive and conservative in your approach and be very conscious of other drivers; you cannot control what they are going to do.

The ‘I’ in Drive

Students completed a range of reflective activities to help them understand what their personality can tell them about the kind of driver or passenger they will be.

The power of passengers was emphasised – having the courage and some strategies to use should they need to speak up to change an unsafe situation.

Mind Matters

An exploration of how our mood and thoughts can affect our driving using role play.

The purpose of our journey – for example to go to a party, a school examination, a funeral or to visit a sick relative in hospital – will have a significant effect on our state of mind and consequently our driving.

The role play vividly highlighted the impact that anxiety and anger can have on our driving and make it very hard to maintain concentration.

Crash Investigators

In this module the group was addressed by the survivor of a significant car crash. She explained how the crash occurred and the long-term impact this has had – and will continue to have – on her life. Using the criteria for the Safe Road System (Road Users, Roads and Roadsides, Vehicles, Speed) students were challenged to investigate the crash to see how different decisions could have made a difference.

Speed and Stopping

This module began with a discussion about car safety ratings and the key things to look for when buying a car to ensure it is safe – a 4 star rating is the absolute minimum. There was also a practical demonstration of many of these safety features so that young men could understand what they need to be aware of and check on their vehicles or those driven by family members.

A practical stopping demonstration vividly showed the difference in stopping distances at 40km/hr, 50km/hr and 60km/hr – even a few km/hr over the speed limit makes a huge difference.

Drive SOS (So Others Survive)

This module aimed to develop an understanding of other road users perspectives so that their actions might be anticipated. The perspectives of truck drivers, pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists were explored and a video observation test highlighted some of the behaviours of other road users that could be encountered and strategies to anticipate some of these in advance.

Overall, this was a worthwhile day that the young men who attended will have taken a lot from, especially given the manner in which they are over-represented in many road crash statistics.