SADD signs support safe driving

SIGNING UP: Bruce Pauling, Wairarapa Road Safety Council road safety manager, and Holly McGeorge, projects co-ordinator, help erect signposts for SADD support billboards outside Kuranui College.

Wairarapa students are showing their commitment to safe driving - by broadcasting road safety messages from their school gates.

Secondary schools, in partnership with Wairarapa Road Safety Council (WRSC), are erecting billboards in front of their school premises as an act of support for Students Against Dangerous Driving Wairarapa (SADD).

The billboards indicate each school's support for SADD, and contain some simple messages from the organisation about the consequences of dangerous driving.

So far, with help from C & G Diggers, WRSC has put up billboards in front of Chanel, Kuranui, Makoura and Solway colleges - and plans to put one outside every Wairarapa college by the end of the year. WRSC projects co-ordinator Holly McGeorge said the billboards are a creative way to help young SADD representatives share safe driving messages with their peers, schools and wider community.

"It's so important that we focus on young drivers in Wairarapa - especially on our rural roads," said Ms McGeorge, whose role involves liaising with and supporting SADD Wairarapa. Last year, five out of the nine fatals on our local roads involved young drivers.

"Teens are more likely to take on important messages if they're coming from their own age group - so, this is a way of spreading the message through schools and the community."

Ms McGeorge said the signage project began last year, when the four colleges involved with SADD held a competition to design the school billboards.

The winning design, from Solway College, featured "big block letters", looking like they had been cut from a newspaper or magazine. To make the signs, WRSC received funding from the Community Organisation Grants Scheme and held community fundraising events.

"We're so grateful for all the support," said Ms McGeorge. "We've got a brand new team of SADD reps this year - but we wanted to carry on the legacy for last year's students and make sure the signs went up," said Ms McGeorge."

Now all Wairarapa secondary schools have SADD representatives, WRSC will be fundraising for billboards to go outside the remaining colleges - St Matthew's, Rathkeale and Wairarapa College - throughout the year.

In August, SADD plans to host an interschool disco - complete with mocktails and a photobooth - for Year 9 to 11 students, both as a fundraiser for the billboards and an introduction to SADD for younger students. SADD Wairarapa has around 30 members aged 13 to 18.