Environment Minister Mark H Durkan has given his backing to a Derry young driver road safety project where children as young as ten get behind the wheel.
Mark H Durkan.
The Cruise Centre aims to provide young people who are interested in driving, with advice and training on road safety issues in a fun, professional and peer learning environment with a view to creating safer drivers within the community.
Speaking during a visit to the centre in Eglinton, Mr Durkan said: “Young drivers are vastly overrepresented when it comes to deaths and serious injuries on our roads.
“In fact, young men are four times more likely to be killed and seven times more likely to be the driver who kills on our roads than the average driver.
“Every death on our roads is one death too many and I want us all to continue to strive for zero road deaths.
“That can only be achieved if we all work together and for that reason my Department launched the Share the Road to Zero campaign in 2013 which asks us to share the responsibility as well as the roads.
“The Cruise Centre aims to take forward some of this shared responsibility by trying to educate young people on the dangers and consequences of dangerous driving and I am keen to find out more about this scheme and its potential to improve the road safety of young people in Northern Ireland.
“The high number of road deaths in the first three weeks of the year only further serves to highlight that and although we have made enormous strides in road safety in Northern Ireland, we must do everything we can to continue that progress and to prevent tragedies reaching more families.”
Mr Durkan concluded: “The key message is that all of us need to use our roads with care, and if we all pledge to Share the Road to Zero, the more likely we are to achieve it.”
Visit www.sharetheroadtozero.com to pledge to Share the Road to Zero road deaths in Northern Ireland.
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