After several years of FirstCar running the Young Driver Focus, today saw the first ever Young Rider Focus, bringing together a range of researchers and practitioners to discuss the challenges facing young motorcyclists.
Tanya was delighted to be co-presenting with Lorraine Willis, Regional Road Safety Co-Ordinator for the East of England for Highways England. Tanya and Lorraine have been working together for the last few years on a comprehensive programme of work, culminating in a randomised controlled trial of enhanced versions of Compulsory Basic Training.
The presentation covered the process followed by Agilysis and Highways England over a two year period, which started with Tanya undertaking a review of motorcycle interventions in the East of England, to understand their evidence base; how the target audiences and aims of the interventions compared to KSI figures; and the quantity of quality of evaluations. There were a number of conclusions from this initial review: that there were opportunities for further collaboration and consistency across the region; that evaluations were not routinely conducted; and that young riders were under-represented in interventions compared to their casualty risk.
The next stage of the programme, therefore, was to hold a two-day ‘Double Diamond’ workshop, where Tanya and Dan Campsall locked a select group of practitioners from the region in a room for two days to work through a defined process of understanding the problem, identifying behaviours to be targeted, and designing elements for a future intervention.
One of the outcomes of the workshop, presented at Young Rider Focus, was the creation of a randomised controlled trial, working with DVSA and Dr Julie Gandolfi, to ‘enhance’ the CBT offered
to young people in the region and review its effectiveness compared to control versions of the training. The results of this trial will be analysed in forthcoming months.