Recent Events across Caerphilly
Back to CaerphillySuper Car Visits Caerphilly
Young people in Blackwood were all revved up recently when a top-of-the-range sports car rolled into town to help highlight important road safety messages. South Wales Fire and Rescue Service (SWFRS), and members of the Community Safety Partnership, led on the initiative entitled ‘Operation Cruise’, in partnership with the council and Gwent Police.
Road Safety Officers from the SWFRS drove into Blackwood town centre in an Aston Martin DB9, which caused quite a stir amongst local youngsters.
The initiative, which was the creation of SWFRS Group Manager Rob Morris, had the initial aim of attracting young people to come and have a look at the impressive car, during which time Road Safety Officers provided them with educational road safety messages via an informative computerised presentation. Rob Morris said, “Through consultation with our partner agencies, a number of concerns were identified regarding youths with cars congregating in local community car parks and similar amenities. It became apparent that the average age group of the youths associated with these gatherings and anti social behaviour is also the age group identified as being most at risk of being killed or seriously injured in a road traffic accident - males aged between sixteen and twenty four. We saw this as an ideal opportunity to get important road safety messages out to local youngsters, including messages about speed, use of mobile telephones, seat belts, distraction and peer pressure - the
initial attraction of coming to have a look at the Aston Martin DB9 provided a great platform for us to get our messages across.
”Feedback gained from the initiative has been extremely positive, with many young drivers displaying a great interest in the messages being delivered. Following on from the success of this initiative SWFRS, as part of the Safer Caerphilly Community Safety Partnership, intend to organise further similar operations across the area in the near future.