MENTORING ROAD SAFETY KIT: A RESOURCE FOR TEACHERS.

Mentoring, when older persons ‘wisely counsel’ and interact with younger persons, has the capacity to be a powerful educational process for positively influencing students’ road safety values, attitudes and behaviours.
A recent ACT study supports the use of mentoring within road safety educational programs. Recommendation 3 of “Students At-Risk and Driver Enhancement Programs in ACT Schools” Long R. (2000) states that:
“The format of peer mentoring ought to be incorporated in any driver education program with young people…the effectiveness of this format is indisputable based upon observations and student feedback.” (P28)
The Mentoring Kit provides information for the development of primary school road safety media and high school pre-driver programs. The kit contains:
• Three books
• One ATSB folder ‘Key Facts for New Drivers’
• One video that has 4 sections:
1. Background on the kit (interviews with teachers, students etc)
2. Professionally developed drink driving advertisements
3. Primary school road safety advertisements (relevant to Year 3 students)
4. Interviews with provisional drivers who were finalists in the ACT Young Driver Challenge The road safety advertising and pre-driver mentoring examples provided are areas of study that students will find both interesting and relevant. They are also programs that teachers will be able to use to meet educational objectives in a number of Key Learning Areas.
However, many teachers will find that implementing a successful mentoring program is a time consuming and challenging task. To encourage teachers to take up the challenge it is suggested that transport and/or education authorities will need to commit resources to its promotion and going support.