Fire Service takes careless driving head on

Fire Service educate young people on the real world dangers of careless driving

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Greater Manchester Fire Service visited Hopwood Hall College in a bid to take to educate young people on the real world dangers of careless driving.

As part of Greater Manchester’s Drive Safe initiative, firefighters from Heywood and Rochdale stations held numerous sessions across the week at the college's Rochdale and Middleton campus.

Students watched as the two fire crew’s role played incidents of car crashes, demonstrating how long it can take to extract a person from a rolled over car and the implications crashes have on those directly involved, their families and the public services staff that attend the scene.

Drive Safe also brought their one in three driving simulators. The mobile simulators test a driver’s ability to deal with distractions they would usually take liberties with, such as phone calls, texts or talking to passengers.

The Drive Safe visit came after a spate of fatal collisions occurred in the Rochdale/Oldham area towards the end of last year.

Tracey Marrow, student support manager at Hopwood Hall College, said: “I’d like to thank the Rochdale and Heywood fire teams for the time they spent with our students.

"The lessons learned here aren’t something you can teach in a classroom, not in such an engaging way anyway. Actually seeing the length of time it takes to cut a person free from a small hatchback is such a stronger message.

“Speaking to the students, they definitely gained a greater understanding on the potential implications of driving irresponsibly.”