Hampshire's older drivers targeted in week long road safety campaign
The Older Drivers Forum, supported by Hampshire Police, is taking part in Project Edwards - a week of action themed around ‘Fit for the Road’
A safety campaign to support older drivers in Hampshire is taking place this week.
Run by the Older Drivers forum - with support from the Police - the campaign features webinars offering advice to help keep the over 70s driving safely for longer.
Project EDWARD stands for 'Every Day Without A Road Death’ and is an annual UK-wide road safety campaign backed by government, the emergency services, highways agencies, road safety organisations and British businesses.
On average 5 people a day are killed and around 150,000 people are injured each year on roads in Great Britain. Unfortunately, 20% of all deaths on our roads are older people. As older licence holders are increasing every year, fatalities for drivers aged 70 and over are forecasted to increase by 22% by 2040.
Police say that although older motorists have a wealth of experience, confidence and tolerance. Sight, hearing, reaction time and judgement of speed and distance may not be as sharp as it once was.
The chair and founder of the Older Drivers Forum Rob Heard said:
“We are excited and proud to support Project Edwards quest to make the roads safer for all. We can all become complacent about our driving and often pick up bad habits, which if not addressed can increase our risk of an incident on the roads. This week of webinars will help give advice on a number of subjects from Confidence building appraisals, Safe driving tips, Electric vehicles and driving with various medical conditions. We have a special webinar on Thursday afternoon hosted by Valerie Singleton OBE on Dash cams, which is one not to miss. We have 1000 free places, so make sure you book early to reserve your place."
The webinars are FREE and have expert speakers as well as participants being able to ask questions. People will need to register their place for each webinar and this can be done by visiting https://olderdriversforum.com/webinars/ .