ROAD safety messages have been driven home to students who say the advice is making them better motorists.
Young drivers at Trinity Academy, in Thorne, say the hard-hitting videos of real life incidents involving local teenagers presented by Doncaster's Road Safety Education team are having a lasting impression.
Year 13 students get to hear the presentation twice during their time in the sixth form at Trinity Academy alongside young people in Year 12, who see it for the first time.
Judith Shaw, road safety trainer with Doncaster Council, and traffic officer PC Peter Burke, explain the financial, physical and emotional costs of road collisions caused by bad driving.
Students learn their ability to assess risk fully is not developed until the age of 25 and that the biggest killer of young women is young male drivers. In South Yorkshire, the number of casualties due to road incidents peaks among men aged 17-24.
The students are warned about the consequences of driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs and told that distraction, inexperience, tiredness and excessive speed can all contribute to collisions.
Judith also warns them against staying in a car with a dangerous driver.
"No matter how experienced you are, the natural instinct of a driver is to turn away from whatever is coming towards them, which means the passenger usually bears the brunt. It might be your girlfriend, your mum or a mate.
"If you're a passenger and you're not happy with someone's driving, get out and stay out. Phone your parents to come and get you. They would much rather you did that and they had to come out late at night to pick you up get than to have a police officer knocking at their door, because that's their worst nightmare," she advises.
Driver Jessica Harvey, 18, of Thorne, said: "I heard the talk last year when I was learning to drive and it's surprising how much you remember. It has affected me in how I drive especially after seeing the videos, which are really moving."
Kieran Wood, 17, of Thorne, who is learning to drive, added: "It does make a difference. It's stuff you hear about but you don't really understand the impact until you see real people talking about it. Once it's in your head, it's hard to forget."
Mark Stockey, associate director of sixth form, said: "We take our sixth form students off timetable for this presentation each year because it's really important advice for them to hear.
"Education doesn't stop in the classroom, and with so many of our older students driving or learning to drive any extra learning they can take away about staying safe is going to be useful."