It is an issue Waitaki Girls’ High School pupil Ella Hamilton has seen repeatedly among young drivers across the country.
So she is spending three days of her holidays at the Students Against Dangerous Driving (Sadd) national conference at John McGlashan College, exploring ways to educate and encourage fellow pupils to develop better driving habits.
"Teenagers get distracted very easily when they’re driving.
"It’s a big problem within schools, so it’s an area we want to focus on and help improve.
"There’s been some crashes and many close calls in Oamaru, where drivers have been distracted by things like loud music and mobile phones."
Ella was among 65 pupils from secondary schools across the South Island who came together on Tuesday, to workshop ideas about safe road use and to learn what good road use looked like.
Sadd national manager Donna Govorko said the national road toll was one of the main focuses of this year’s conference.
"It’s something that we want to bring down as a community, and the students are here to actually raise their voice up to make sure that their message is getting across, not only to their peer groups but the community as a whole, to try and see what we can do as a collective to bring road deaths and serious injuries down."
During the conference, the pupils worked in groups to come up with presentations they could take back to their schools, she said.
"They also come up with resources that can be shared, flyers, all sorts of ways of engaging with our partners...," she said.
They included New Zealand Police and Fire and Emergency New Zealand and other road safety co-ordinators.
The aim was to provide resources that could be shared and used to encourage other people to engage in their campaigns and spread the messages.
"We’ve seen some really good innovative stuff at this conference — like using QR codes to do quizzes, which hasn’t been done before.
"We’ve seen all sorts of ways of engaging with our audiences using technology, because technology is advancing all the time.
"Engaging with young people means keeping up with the trends and knowing what the different social media methods are."
The national conference concludes today.
