THE public - young drivers especially - were invited to a Road Safety Awareness Evening organised by the emergency services at Lords Meadow Leisure Centre overflow car park in Crediton.

The free event saw a cross-section of young people attend, numbers boosted by attendance of members of both Newton St Cyres and Bow Young Farmers’ Clubs.

It included a mock rescue of a casualty from a car demonstration by Crediton firefighters.

The firefighters used “jaws of life” cutting equipment to cut the roof off a car to remove the person safely, placing the person on a spinal injury board.

Crediton Neighbourhood Policing Team offered safety advice, mainly promoting the “myredthumb.com” campaign, which reminds people not to text and drive, and “The Honest Truth” campaign (thehonesttruth.co.uk), which asks that people make one small change which could ultimately save a life.

Devon and Cornwall Police Force Road Safety Partnership Sgt, Ollie Tayler, said: “Working with other partners we aim to promote road safety, part of this being education of young drivers.”

He explained that those aged 17 to 24 only make up about 10 per cent of the population but in recent years they have accounted for half of injury crashes between 10pm and 5am, more than a third of people arrested by police after failing a roadside breath test following a crash, half of crashes blamed on excess speed, half of crashes involving only one vehicle and nearly half of injury crashes in the rain.

The campaign “The Honest Truth” focuses on speed, drink, drugs, mobile telephones, showing off, distractions, seatbelts and driving while tired.

There was a driving simulator vehicle and many people “had-a-go” at trying to drive under various computer controlled conditions.

Police Sgt Dave MacFadden, the Neighbourhood Team Leader for Crediton and Cullompton, said: "We joined with the local Crediton Fire Service officers to carry out an educational road safety awareness evening aimed at our young or inexperienced drivers who will be using our roads in and around the Mid Devon area.

“We also wanted to put on a show for our local communities so they could get ‘close and personal’ to the scene of an accident so they could exactly see what happens.

“They wouldn’t normally get the chance to do this so hopefully it was educational for them also.

“I would like to thank our communities for turning up to watch the event and hope they enjoyed it.

“I would also like to publically thank PCSO Becky Tanner for being instrumental in setting the event up.

“She worked really hard to pull it all together and make the event happen. She will be arranging another one in the autumn/winter period so watch this space!

“If anybody would like to suggest any road safety scenarios that they would like us to try and arrange as part of these events then please make contact with us by email at: [email protected] and we will, in conjunction with the other emergency services, see what we can do to make it happen.”