If the need for a campaign to ensure young people receive effective teaching about drink-driving were in doubt, then the statistics prove the point. Each year about 10,000 people are killed or injured on UK roads in accidents in which alcohol is a contributory factor. “That’s potentially 24 lives lost or vastly changed every day or roughly one an hour,” says Mike McAdam, founder and trustee of Don’t Be That Someone, the campaigning organization he set up three years ago to combat what is so preventable a cause of death and misery, adding, “and nearly half of all car passengers (48%) killed or injured in drink drive accidents are aged between 16 and 24 years.”
The award-winning campaign focuses on young people between the ages of 14-18. Beginning young, suggests McAdam, is essential because it is in the years before teenagers are able to climb into the driving seat themselves that their views about drink-driving are formed thanks to the ambient attitudes around them among adults and their peers. Don’t Be That Someone has developed some powerful curriculum-matched resources for use in schools, youth clubs and numerous other contexts. They have been well received by youth-offending teams, for example. “They are designed not to preach to young people,” says McAdam, “but to give them a clear idea of the impact of drink-driving accidents, and also how better to cope in situations where perhaps relations or friends behave irresponsibly or put them under pressure to do so”.
The Don’t Be That Someone resource pack includes a DVD with vox pops and documentary, and printed lesson plans that fit within the Key Stage 4 National Curriculum. Full details can be found at tinyurl.com/tsthatsomeone.
