Although only ten percent of the total population, thirty percent of road traffic fatalities and thirty-five percent of injured are the sad average we are facing in Europe as concerns the 18 to 24-year-Olds. Expressed in figures: 13,000 youngsters aged between 18 and 24 are killed and more than 500,000 are injured each year on the roads of the European Union. These unacceptable figures are the basic motivation for the holding of a series of three regional workshops within the framework of the ERSF YES "Say Yes to Safer Driving" campaign, sponsored by the European Commission. The aim of these workshops was to involve young people and youth multipliers throughout the 15 countries of the European Union, to help experts seek solutions in the fields of formal and informal education as well as young people's social environment, with the ultimate goal of saving as many young people as possible from being killed or from lifelong disabilities. The novelty of these platforms was the active participation and interaction between young people, youth multipliers and various experts concerned about the subject. All along the YES workshops, we have found that many young Europeans are highly motivated and interested in contributing to this ambitious and challenging task. The urgent need for intensifying communication to exchange information and ideas among young people in Europe will be covered directly (a) by the set-up of a permanent YES-site on Internet to enable young people to make proposals for actions or suggest ideas on how to solve the Young Driver problem, and (b) by the setting up of a permanent working group "Young Drivers", composed by young Europeans. Further, the European Commission has agreed to sponsor a Young Driver Parliament, an European workshop with special emphasis on motorcyclists (London, March 1998) as well as the development of a best practice manual on co-operation schemes between youths and traffic safety actors. The latter should help young people and youth groups to create local, regional and national networks in co-operation with existing traffic safety actors, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, lead to the systematic involvement of youths in road safety actions and campaigns aimed at their age group. In this way, both the top-bottom and bottom-up approach should operate ideally. (A)
Abstract