Goodyear’s Driving Academy aims to increase road safety knowledge for children.
Goodyear launched its pioneering Driving Academy programme in 2012 to educate children about the importance of road safety by placing a real emphasis on understanding the Highway Code. Instead of placing restrictions on young drivers which could simply delay bad behaviour, Goodyear wants to address road-user attitudes and driving behaviour through education.
The Driving Academy is run in partnership with Young Driver, who specialise in driver training for children aged 11 and upwards, giving hundreds of children a glimpse of the complexities of driving a car as well as the hazards.
The programme was built to ensure young drivers have a thorough understanding of road safety via a graduated learning programme from an early age, before they qualify for a provisional driving licence. This concept is based on factual global research whereby countries which adopt graduated learning principles have lower rates of young driver accidents.
To date, the Driving Academy classroom resource has been adopted by 80% of senior schools in the UK, providing students with road safety education.
The Driving Academy App
In 2016, and as part of the Driving Academy programme, Goodyear launched their first VR (virtual reality) app to connect with young drivers and make them aware of the dangers of driver distraction.
The app, which uses Google Cardboard, aims to educate young people of the dangers of driver distractions through an immersive experience which puts them in the driving seat, and is used as part of the annual Young Driver Challenge competition run by Young Driver as well as promoted by the DIA through their extensive network of learner drivers.
Developed in conjunction with the Driving Instructors Association (DIA), the game tasks the player to drive through various scenarios whilst navigating internal distractions, such as text messages appearing, or passengers talking, and external distractions, such as pedestrians crossing the road. The free app is available for public use on drivingacademy.goodyear.co.uk (available in Google Cardboard and non-VR formats) and is also used at Young Driver centres across the country as part of our Goodyear Driving Academy programme.
You’ll find more information in our Drivng Distractions report below, or to find out more visit the Goodyear website here.
