Tracey Doherty with some of the 200 pupils from Grosvenor Grammar School who took part in Autoline Insurance’s road safety initiative ‘Respect the Road’.

Grosvenor Grammar School plays host to Autoline’s ‘Respect the Road’ Campaign

200 Year 14 students at Grosvenor Grammar School have taken part in one of Northern Ireland’s most engaging road safety initiatives delivered by Autoline Insurance.

The programme involves an interactive educational road safety workshop consisting of videos and harrowing first-hand accounts of real life incidents delivered by Tracey Doherty, a former PSNI Traffic Branch Officer of over 30-years’ experience.

As a result of Autoline Insurance Group’s commitment to road safety, over 25,000 new and soon-to-be drivers have benefited from the ‘Respect the Road’ programme.

Suzanne Curtis of Autoline Insurance Group said:

“As a local insurance broker, we’re passionate about working with communities to make our roads safer and speaking with younger drivers to tackle issues relevant to them. In 2017, 63 people died on Northern Ireland’s roads.  Almost 20% of those killed were aged between 16 and 24-years old and three of the total fatalities were in Belfast.

“With our ‘Respect the Road’ campaign we aim to increase awareness amongst young drivers and decrease the number of major incidents and deaths on our roads. While there was a 25% decrease in deaths amongst 16-24-year-old road users in 2017 compared to the previous year, any death is one too many and we hope our work in this area can help reduce this statistic even further.

“During the presentation, students also had the opportunity to learn more about our young driver insurance product ‘ChilliDrive’, a phone app based on telematics technology which can dramatically improve safety standards in young drivers by tracking and generating a score for each of their trips and outlining where improvements can be made to their driving habits. 

“It is having a really positive impact on our current live users - on average over a six-month period the number of dangerous driving incidents recorded by the app fell by almost 20% as drivers improved their driving habits.  There was also a reduction of over 50% in the average value of claims made by drivers aged 17-21.”

Nick Lendrum, Head of Year 14 at Grosvenor, said: ''Autoline's 'Respect the Road' workshop proved extremely informative and worthwhile, and met with a very favourable reaction from the Senior School pupils in attendance.  Tracey Doherty's mixture of anecdotal evidence, statistical information and hard-hitting facts helped to get her message across clearly and plainly, with pupils left in do doubt about the importance of displaying vigilance when behind the wheel.”

For further information about how your school or organisation can participate in the ‘Respect The Road’ programme please contact Evanna Kieran at Autoline Insurance Group on 028 3025 9011.