College hosts road campaign

Year 13 and 14 students at Portadown College have taken part in one of Northern Ireland's most engaging road safety initiatives delivered by Autoline Insurance.
Portadown College had a visit from the Autoline Insurance car crash simulator and students were able to experience what a car crash is really like. Pictured with the simulator are from lrft, Luke Hanvey, Jordan Bingham, Tracey Doherty, Autoline, Ryan Crory, Sam McElroy, Autoline, Brett Hardy. INPT10-201.Portadown College had a visit from the Autoline Insurance car crash simulator and students were able to experience what a car crash is really like. Pictured with the simulator are from lrft, Luke Hanvey, Jordan Bingham, Tracey Doherty, Autoline, Ryan Crory, Sam McElroy, Autoline, Brett Hardy. INPT10-201.
Portadown College had a visit from the Autoline Insurance car crash simulator and students were able to experience what a car crash is really like. Pictured with the simulator are from lrft, Luke Hanvey, Jordan Bingham, Tracey Doherty, Autoline, Ryan Crory, Sam McElroy, Autoline, Brett Hardy. INPT10-201.

The programme involves an educational road safety workshop consisting of videos, statistics and harrowing first-hand accounts of real life incidents from Tracey Doherty, a former PSNI Traffic Branch Officer of over 30 years’ experience.

Students were also advised how driver monitoring apps such as Autoline’s award-winning ‘ChilliDrive’ product can dramatically improve safety standards in young drivers by generating a score for each of their trips, outlining where improvements can be made to their driving habits.

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Autoline Insurance Group is visiting schools and colleges across Northern Ireland to deliver its ‘Respect the Road’ safety campaign. To date over 25,000 new and soon-to-be drivers have benefited from the programme.

Mr Stephen McDowell, teacher at Portadown College said; “The Respect the Road presentation by Autoline Insurance was excellent. It gave pupils a real insight into what the major causes and consequences of careless and dangerous driving are. My hope is that pupils now make informed and wise decisions every time they get behind the wheel of a car.”

Despite the high-profile attention which road safety messages receive, 63 people died on Northern Ireland’s roads in 2017.

Almost 20% of those killed were under 25-years old.

Suzanne Curtis of Autoline Insurance Group said:

“As a local insurance broker, we’re passionate about working with communities to make our roads safer and speaking to younger drivers to tackle issues relevant to them.

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“With our ‘Respect the Road’ campaign and ‘ChilliDrive’ App we aim to increase awareness amongst young drivers and decrease the number of major incidents and deaths on our roads.

“While there was a 25% decrease in deaths amongst 16-24 year old road users in 2017 compared to the previous year, any death is one too many and we hope our work in this area can help reduce this statistic even further.

“The ‘ChilliDrive’ App is having a positive impact on its users. On average, over a six month period the number of dangerous driving incidents recorded by the app fell by almost 20% as drivers improved their driving habits. There was also a reduction of over 50% in the average value of claims made by drivers aged 17-21.”

‘ChilliDrive’ uses telematics technology to monitor the driving habits of its users and grade drivers on a scale of 1-5 for each recorded trip. The app creates a profile of each user and rewards safer drives with improved rates and premiums.

For further information about how your school or organisation can participate in the ‘Respect the Road’ programme, please contact Evanna Kieran at Autoline Insurance Group on 028 3025 9011.