Roadshow highlights a lasting impact

The NSWRL and Transport for NSW have completed another successful year for Regional Roadshows which saw True Blue legends deliver three programs to on road safety to more than 1000 high school students to the state’s regional areas.

Origin stars Mark O’Meley, Willie Mason, Tim Brasher, Steve Menzies, Matt Cooper and Andrew Ryan, who played a combined 89 games for NSW between them, were the guest speakers using their high profiles to underline the lasting impact of road accidents.

“I always use the football analogy that a knock-on in footy isn’t very helpful to your game but you get another chance,” Menzies told students in the Lake Macquarie and Kurri Kurri areas of the NSW Central Coast.

“In (road) accidents, there’s no second chance.”

Brasher said the statistics were damning that every 41 minutes in NSW there was a road accident, where there were either fatalities or serious injuries.

Regional areas were four times more likely to have accidents than city streets.

“We give those messages so hopefully it resonates with them to look after each other on the road; like they do playing sport,” Brasher said.

“It’s making sure you mate doesn’t make a bad decision so we’re out here as ex-footballers telling them to look after their mates, stick together.

“Then when it’s time to make those decisions you say ‘Hey, we’re not driving tonight, we’re having a Plan B and that’s walking home or getting a taxi’.”

Channel Nine’s The Sunday Footy Show program came to the Central Coast to film the program and interview the family of local teenage footballer, Elijah Faalua.

He was killed in a road accident in April last year. He was 17.

The areas visited by the Regional Roadshows took in Macksville, Forster, Taree, Wagga Wagga, Lake Macquarie, and Kurri Kurri; while the schools; while the schools included Macksville High School, St Clare High School, Great Lakes College, Kildare Catholic College, Mount Austin High School, Kooringal High School, All Saints College Maitland, and Kurri Kurri High School.

Alongside the school, the True Blues went to local Rugby League clubs including the Macksville Sea Eagles, Wingham Tigers, Southcity Bulls, Kurri Kurri Bulldogs.