‘Wheels’ DVD comes round again

A MUCH acclaimed road safety DVD targeting young drivers has had a new lease of life.

It is to feature in part eight of S4C’s 10-part ‘Arwyr 999’ series produced by Boom Pictures at 6pm Thursday, November 7 and repeated on the following Monday.

Carmarthenshire’s Community Safety Partnership funded and the fire and rescue service developed the short dramatic road safety film called “Wheels of Misfortune” in partnership with Tinopolis and the then Trinity College, Carmarthen.

It was successful in driving home the risks and tragic consequences of joy riding, dashboard dining, using the phone and loud music as a driving distraction and while driving vehicles over loaded with passengers. The DVD was shown to thousands of students in Carmarthenshire schools and colleges and was adopted across Wales after being launched at the Urdd Eisteddfod in 2007.

“Arwyr 999” gives “Wheels of Fortune” a new lease of life featuring as a training DVD for those involved in saving life working in emergency services like police, ambulance and fire and rescue. Students from Llanelli and Carmarthen feature in the episode.

The S4C series gives the opportunity for four youngsters to spend two days with a different emergency service in each programme. The first day is spent training whilst on the second the youngsters are posed with a ‘real life’ challenge of their own by responding to an ‘emergency.’

In regards to the usage of the Wheels of Misfortune DVD the four youngsters were instructed to watch the DVD prior to beginning their training and were then filmed expressing their responses to it.

The four then spent the remainder of the two days training with the Mid & West Wales Fire Service team learning how to deal with road traffic collisions before dealing with and road traffic collision re-enactment as their challenge

Deputy Leader of Carmarthenshire Council Cllr Pam Palmer said: “The tragedy unfolding within ‘Wheels of Misfortune’ and the safety messages therein are as current today as they were in 2007.

“Every year many hundred more young drivers take to the road throughout the county and thousands across Wales so age does not weary the message we have to get over to them or the effect on emergency services that have to deal with the tragic consequences of misfortune.”