Muso's show on track to help save young lives

Billy TK Jr, above, takes a personal approach to road safety. Photo / Supplied

How do you get the safety message through to youngsters? A Kiwi music star thinks he's found a way. When singer and ace guitarist Billy TK isn't playing concerts, he's on the road, visiting our nation's schools.

The Herald on Sunday joined him at Marcellin College, a decile-three school in Auckland's Mt Albert, to see how he does it.

Billy's method supplied a hard-hitting emotional see-saw, with information delivered in rapid-fire bursts punctuated by humour and pop quizzes.

Then he floored the assembly by introducing Taja, a slightly built, softly spoken slip of a girl who crashed her car while speeding, drunk, and carrying a car-load of friends. Her broken back and neck have healed, but her brain injury still gives her trouble.

Then Tamati arrived. Once a young Maori sports achiever headed for the world stage, he's now a bright spirit trapped in a bent and shuffling body thanks to a drunk driver. He moved the audience to tears.

His message, and Billy's, was simple. Don't drink and drive. Don't get into a car with a drunk driver. Don't speed. Do your belt up. And make sure friends and whanau do the same.

"Don't be an idiot in your car," Billy says, "and don't jump in with idiots. You only have one life; if you lose it, it's gone."

The question is, have the kids got the message - or just had a good time? Those we spoke to were blown away. "Everyone knows the message, you just think it won't happen to you." "It opens your eyes; it's hard." You'll remember it? "Oh yes."

Billy TK's road show is not funded by the Government but by Westpac, Te Puni Kokiri, the AA and Holden.

These kids won't buy cars - so why would Holden get involved? "We're not concerned about that," says corporate affairs manager Chantelle Urquhart. "It's about making our communities and our roads safer."

Urquhart was struck by the emotional connection Billy makes with kids, a connection she says gets the message through.