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By Rod Cheeseman
Thirty years after it was first formed at Mahurangi College, the Students Against Dangerous Driving (SADD) initiative is still thriving at schools around the country.
The student-led programme, which promotes safer driving amongst youth, is now in three quarters of all New Zealand schools.
Mahurangi student Lynda Civil started the programme after she returned from an exchange trip to America in 1985. Back in 1985, the road toll among 15-19 year olds was 152. Now, 30 years on, that figure has been reduced by 80 per cent, to around 30 deaths each year.
Robyn Jones (nee Starr) got involved in the initiative when she was 14 and was one of the original members. She still lives locally and runs a transport business in the area. “I’ m amazed it’s still going,” she says. “My daughter Paige is about the age I was when it started. She’ s also a student at Mahurangi College. They need to keep going with it.”
Robyn and her fellow students used shock tactics to get their message across. Accident scenes were created with wrecked cars and ‘ victims’ heavily made-up with tomato sauce.
“Our thinking was, if people can see it and get scared by it, they are less likely to drive dangerously,” Robyn says.
The next step in the students campaign was to mark the spot where people had been killed along State Highway 1 with white crosses. Former student Amanda Johnson (nee Bellingham) remembers it well.
“We started off the whole white cross initiative,” she says. “I remember going down to the satellite station and putting up the first white crosses.”
Transit New Zealand, now NZTA, ordered them to be removed. The students, under the watchful eye of local Pat Lennan, were not deterred and moved the crosses onto private land. In 1991 Transit New Zealand reversed its decision and the white cross is still used as a cautionary sign to drivers. Amanda Johnson says that although the organisation was local it was always focused on having a positive impact nationwide.
“We used to travel around doing speaking engagements and set up mock accidents. I remember going up to Whangarei Girls [high school] and explaining SADD’ s goals and concerns. We were very much focused on spreading the word to other schools,” Amanda says.
The success of the local SADD organisation caught the attention of American based SADD founder Robert Anastas. The former teacher started SADD after two of his pupils were killed in a car crash involving a drunk driver. He visited Warkworth in 1991 and embarked on a nationwide tour, bringing together all the schools that Mahurangi College had encouraged to take up the cause under the SADD umbrella.
SADD school support regional co-ordinator Chris Rogers says despite the significant reduction in the road toll, the message is still as poignant today as it was 30 years ago.
“If you are between 15 and 19,” says Chris. “You are more likely to die in a car crash than any other cause. Speed, alcohol, and drugs have the most destructive impact.”
Today Brenton Baker is Mahurangi College’ s current SADD representative. He says they owe a debt to the original students back in 1985. He isn’t surprised the initiative is still going strong today.
“It’s relevant today because it’s still an issue,” Brenton says. “I had a family member killed in a car accident and I wanted to make sure that my friends didn’t become a statistic. I’ m really happy to be part of the initiative that they started.”
