The second-year University of Otago student’s years-long campaign has been rewarded after winning the national youth Yellow Ribbon Road Safety Hero award.
Her work began in 2022 when as a student at Queen’s High School she established Kaitiaki o Ara Students Against Dangerous Driving (SADD) at the school.
Miss Adie said she was inspired to do so because her friend crashed while texting and driving.
‘‘She looked at her phone at a red light then went, and did not see another car had squeezed the orange.
‘‘It didn’t impact her that badly, but the other driver was an older man ... the ripple-out effects of that, the healthcare impacts and the psychological toll started it for me.’’
She said while the crash was not technically her friend’s fault, the entire event could have been avoided had her full attention been on the road.
After starting the group in secondary school, she went on to become a SADD national leader in 2023-24.
Since starting university, she was now the youth representative on the SADD board.
Miss Adie has undertaken a neuroscience research project into habit forming, investigating the impulses and social influences that lead to people picking up their cellphones while driving and how these can be overcome.
‘‘I surveyed hundreds of young people from across the country about their habits and how they use their phones ... people were very honest, and the result was that most young people do use their phones when they drive.’’
She used those results to come up with ideas on how to break the habit.
Miss Adie looked at how the dopamine response works and how the basal ganglia — which acts as a control centre for the brain — works, then took that research to find a way to target youth.
‘‘Those laws aren’t there for no reason — everyone’s devastated when they read about it, but no-one actually wants to know anything about it.’’
Miss Adie is now training a potential replacement to take her spot on the SADD board, and is looking at starting a SADD group at the university.
