Parents praise free practical training

Dorset County Council's Road Safety Team says participants have given the ‘thumbs up’ to its trial run of a scheme to encourage parents to refresh their practical driving skills and knowledge.

Statistics showed that the vast majority of child casualties across the county at school run times were car occupants, not pedestrians or cyclists.

Up to 20 regular school-run driving parents - at a school where there are regularly 90 or more parent drivers - were given the opportunity to spend an hour on roads around the area, accompanied in their own car by an approved driving instructor for free.

"The dozen parents who took part couldn't speak highly enough of the scheme," said Robert Smith, Dorset’s head of road safety. "They all said they had learnt something new and valued the opportunity to brush up on their defensive driving and hazard perception skills under the supervision of an experienced instructor. The headteacher and some parent governors also took part."

Lyn Stockham, headteacher at Abbey Primary in Sherborne added: "The school fully supports Dorset County Council's practical steps to try to reduce the number of injuries to child car passengers in Dorset and at the same time improve driving standards. I took part and it was an enlightening experience."

Robert Smith and the headteacher were interested to find out why the other driving parents didn't respond to the free offer.

Careful questioning revealed that 25 per cent thought there would be a rush to grab the first 20 places and so didn't bother applying. 50 per cent said they would wait to find out what the first ‘guinea-pigs’ felt before doing it themselves, as they feared criticism of their driving.

The remaining 25 per cent said they didn't respond because they felt they didn't need to improve their driving.

The Road Safety Team is now working on the second group and aims to use the positive feedback from the first group, combined with children's 'pester-power', to get them involved.

Further information can be obtained from Robert Smith, r.smith@dorsetcc.gov.uk.