Road Safety Experience sets out to save lives in Kent

The ‘Road Safety Experience’ visitor centre, located at Rochester Fire Station and created and operated by Kent Fire and Rescue Service, is now open.

While the centre is predominantly aimed at reducing casualties among young road users, Kent Fire & Rescue Service hope that employers will also use the facility to improve their occupational road risk management. (Fleet News)

Offered free of charge to all schools, colleges and groups in the area, the centre has been developed to help young people learn from the experience of others, and equip them to make better decisions when travelling as drivers and passengers.

The Road Safety Experience comprises a combination of “powerful stories, exciting interactive experiences and information from experienced road safety experts” to encourage young people to look at the potential consequences of a collision from all perspectives – themselves, their passengers, other drivers and their families.

However, one of the first corporate events to be held at the centre will be a summer breakfast briefing, targeted at small and medium-sized businesses in the Kent area.

The briefing will mark the start of a new occupational road risk management initiative aimed at helping Highways England achieve at least a 40% reduction in the number of people killed and seriously injured on the roads by the end of 2020.

Alexa Kersting-Woods, Kent Fire and Rescue Service’s road safety and safeguarding manager, told Fleet News: “We have been involved in delivering road safety education in schools for a number of years. Opening the centre will allow us to expand the work that we do.

“It will provide an all-round experience with interactive learning zones providing thought-provoking insights around risks and responsibilities, to help young people to develop the essential skills they need to make informed decisions as a driver or passenger.

“We are looking to work with companies to support their road safety strategies. The ultimate aim of the Road Safety Experience is to create a visitor centre specifically focused on activities that will contribute, alongside key multi-agency campaigns, to a reduction in the disproportionately high number of young people killed and seriously injured on the roads.”

Although the centre is being run by Kent Fire and Rescue Service it is also available to employers based outside the county.