Warwickshire Police recruits 65 driving instructors to help young drivers stay safer on Warwickshire roads

Warwickshire Police has recruited 65 Approved Driving Instructors to join them as ‘Honest Truth’ Driving Instructors funded by the Warwickshire Police and Crime Commissioner to help reduce the number of young people killed and seriously injured on Warwickshire’s roads.

It’s not too late however, if you are an Approved Driving Instructor in Warwickshire there are still a few free places left if you would like to join The Honest Truth’s innovative scheme.

As well as teaching a young person to drive, Approved Driving Instructors use The Honest Truth to also teach the essential life skills that new drivers need when first driving on their own, enabling new drivers to make the right decisions when it matters. By learning about ‘The Honest Truth’ new drivers are given the confidence to challenge inappropriate behaviour by passengers and make the small changes necessary to stay safe.  

In return, the Approved Driving Instructors receive one year’s membership subscription to The Honest Truth including access to The Honest Truth online training and a range of materials and videos. They are added to a list of Approved Driving Instructors on The Honest Truth website, can use the logo helping promote their business and receive a member sticker for their car. 

There are benefits to younger drivers and we are asking people in Warwickshire to consider choosing one of The Honest Truth Approved Driving Instructors to teach a young person to drive.

Inspector Jem Mountford said “Warwickshire’s younger drivers are currently over represented in our road casualty statistics - four young people aged 17-25 were killed and 66 were seriously injured on Warwickshire’s roads in the year 2018.  An additional 267 of Warwickshire’s 17-25 year old's suffered slight injuries in road related incidents. This is something we want to change.“

We know from statistical evidence that the majority of new and young drivers who are killed or seriously injured, aren’t as a result of poor driving skills. In other words, the mirror-signal-manoeuvre technical skills taught by driving instructors and required to pass a driving test aren’t so much of an issue as the lack of decision-making skills and understanding of the dangers faced by new drivers.  The Honest Truth project helps to make young drivers aware of the risks when they start to drive alone.

Approved Driving Instructors are in the unique position of reaching young drivers when they are in the learning state of mind and use just a few minutes per lesson to convey vital road safety education.

Warwickshire Police and Crime Commissioner Philip Seccombe said “We have provided the funding for 75 approved driving instructors to become The Honest Truth driving instructors in Warwickshire because we want young people to be safer on our roads. We’re not far off meeting that target, which is fantastic news, but I would really like to see the full 75 instructors signing up.

“This scheme is really important as it means we can get good road safety messages to every single one of the pupils the instructors take on, which will equate to a considerable percentage of all new learner drivers in Warwickshire.

“In turn we hope that the increased awareness of road safety among new drivers will begin to make a noticeable difference, keeping our roads safer for everyone.” 

Annette Lloyd, Head of The Honest Truth said, ‘There are still a few places left for driving instructors across Warwickshire to get involved in the project. The road safety guidance we provide is simple to use and easy to deliver to their students. But, it could have an incredible impact long term on the safety of those young drivers.”

If you are interested in becoming an Honest Truth Approved Driving Instructor in Warwickshire please email [email protected]

To find your nearest Honest Truth Approved Driving Instructor please look at the map here https://thehonesttruth.co.uk/pages/advanced-driving-instructors

Note to Editors

Please find additional statistics below

• Young drivers in the 17-24 year old age group are at much higher risk of crashing than older drivers. 
• Drivers aged 17-19 years old only make up 1.5% of UK licence holders but are involved in 9% of fatal and serious crashes where they are the driver.
• Source for the above stats: Brake/Reported road casualties Great Britain 2014, Dept for Transport, 2015, table RAS30011.
• Drivers aged 16-19 are a third more likely to die in a crash than drivers aged 40-49. (Source Brake/Reported road casualties Great Britain 2014, Dept for Transport 2015 table RAS30025)
• One in four 18-24 year olds (23%) crash within two years of passing their driving test.
• In Warwickshire there are around 8,500 test passes each year and each Approved Driving Instructor sees about 40 students per year.
• There are more than 2000 THT instructors nationwide
• There are thought to be approximately 200 ADI’s in Warwickshire

The Honest Truth is evidence based and pre and post evaluation of the campaign will be carried out by road safety experts Agilysis. http://agilysis.co.uk/

The Honest Truth became part of FirstCar from September 1st 2019, prior to that it was a charity. https://www.thehonesttruth.co.uk/the-honest-truth-project-continues-with-firstcar/