Our Speakers
Guy Opperman
Minister for Roads and Local Transport, Department for Transport
Keynote address.
We are delighted to welcome Mr Opperman, who will deliver the keynote address with an update on government policy. Although relatively new in post, Guy is passionate about his role in making the roads safer for everyone.
Guy Opperman was appointed Minister for Roads and Local Transport at the Department for Transport in November 2023. He was previously Minister of State at the Department for Work and Pensions between November 2022 and October 2023 and Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the same department for five years. He served as a Government Whip from May 2015 to June 2017. He was elected Conservative MP for Hexham in 2010.
Jacqui Upton & Dr Simon Christmas
Senior Advisor: Social Research and Behaviour Change, National Highways
Director, Simon Christmas Ltd.
The Novice Drivers and Safe Distances: How can novices be equipped with better mental models of following distance on high-speed roads?
Dr Simon Christmas and National Highway’s Jacqui Upton will present findings from primary research with novice drivers. Using qualitative methods to gather participants’ accounts of the process of learning to drive and their experiences since passing their test. With the focus on high-speed roads, we wanted to know more about how participants experienced and made sense of their own learning and its implications for managing following distances and the perceived social norms that govern behaviour on busy high-speed roads.
Bio. Simon is an independent social researcher with extensive experience in transport and road safety. He specialises in the use of qualitative methods to explore how other people experience, make sense of and find value in the world, as a basis for better policies, services or interventions.
In 2021 Jacqui joined the Social Research and Behaviour Change team at National Highways, after 13 years working for the DVSA. Her knowledge and experience working in road safety social research is now supporting the development of both strategic and applied initiatives in National Highways by helping the organisation understand what its customers think, feel and do.
Laura Hill
Head of Marketing, Department for Transport
THINK! campaign update
A summary of recent THINK! campaign activity that focuses on the new driver demographic. Most recently, THNK! Campaigns have included:
CLICK is the sound. Wearing a seat belt reduces the risk of death for drivers by 50%, yet four unbelted young people were killed or seriously injured every week in 2022. 30% of these car occupant fatalities were among 17 to 29-year-olds who were not wearing seat belts. This seat belt campaign encourages young men to wear their seat belts, whatever the journey, whether they’re drivers or passengers.
Is pushing your speed worth it? Speed contributes to around one in four fatal collisions on our road and kills and injures 58 young people every week. But despite this, only 32% of young men consider it risky. This campaign speaks to male drivers aged 17-24 to raise awareness of the impact that even slight speeding on rural roads can have.
Laura shares the core insights, results, and learnings. She also looks to the future with an overview of upcoming activities and plans.
Bio. Laura Hill has been working on public sector marketing campaigns for over 20 years, starting out on Teacher Recruitment before moving to the Department for Transport.
During her time at DfT Laura has led several high-profile THINK! behaviour change campaigns from the first drug drive campaign to more recent campaigns supporting changes to The Highway Code, drink drive and mobile phone use.
Working across multiple THINK! campaigns has given Laura an in-depth knowledge of young driver attitudes. Her experience lies in strategy and insight, channel planning, partnership marketing and evaluation.
Dan Quin
Chief Fire Officer, Surrey Fire & Rescue Service
A collaborative approach to young driver safety education.
Dan will talk about the collaborative approach being adopted by the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) to the design and delivery of evidence-based road safety education. He will outline progress to date, including the further development of the DriveFit intervention designed and tested by Dr Elizabeth Box; and how the NFCC is supporting the development of a suite of young driver focussed products/packages, that will be consistently delivered across partners.
Bio. Dan Quin, Chief Fire Officer of Surrey Fire & Rescue Service (SFRS) is also the National Fire Chiefs Council Road Safety and Road Rescue Lead. Dan has over 20 years’ experience within the industry since joining SFRS in 1999 and has specialised for many years in post-crash response. Dan is also the Vice Chair of the United Kingdom Rescue Organisation, a charity with the aim to ‘Advance Professional Rescue Together’.
Loveday Ryder
Chief Executive, DVSA
An update on the young driver training and testing industry
Bio. Loveday Ryder became the Chief Executive of the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) in January 2021. She was previously in the Ministry of Justice, where she successfully served in a number of senior roles in organisation design, change management and programme delivery.
Before joining the Civil Service in 2006, Loveday worked within a specialist management consultancy delivering business change, performance improvement, and IT programmes in both the public and private sector.
Lorna Smith
Team Leader - Safer Road Users, Kent County Council
Young driver and passenger intervention
Kent County Council (KCC) launched their hybrid virtual young driver and passenger course in 2020, which is designed to empower the learner, the novice driver and young passengers to make safer choices when they get into a car. The five-part programme forms part of KCC’s lifelong learning approach and complements the ‘Speak Out’ campaign. Lorna will outline the course content, overcoming school curriculum conflicts and provide an update following three years of evaluation.
Bio. Lorna is a qualified teacher who has worked in primary, secondary and adult education. She spent 21 years with Kent police undertaking roles in crash scene management, investigation and deployed as a family liaison officer for fatal crashes. She has worked within Kent County Council Road safety team since 2019 and in that time, she has been involved in a range of education, training, and interventions for the 12 to 24-year-old demographic. Lorna is currently the safer road users team leader supporting Kent in their Vision Zero strategy.
Keanan Lloyd-Adams
Actor & TikToker
TikTok – the next frontier in young driver engagement
Over the past two decades, media outlets have become more niche and the search for reliable information more fragmented. Young drivers have begun moving away from Google, Facebook and Instagram, towards more short-form platforms, like TikTok.
This presents a clear risk for road safety, as influencers and channels can easily propagate inaccurate information, or worse, glamourise risky behaviours. Having seeded a successful TikTok channel, FirstCar opened it up for collaboration – allowing road safety professionals who would otherwise find it hard to maintain a TikTok presence to reach their audience through @firstcaruk. This presentation unpicks the opportunities and challenges of running a collaborative young driver channel on TikTok.
Bio. Keanan's first ever job as an actor was with FirstCar back in 2017 - and he's been working with them ever since! When he’s not running epic quiz nights or hosting £20k gaming giveaways with Acer, you’ll find Keanan producing young driver road safety content for FirstCar’s TikTok channel.
Cheryl Evans, Chief Inspector Mike Bettington and Dr Elizabeth Box.
West Berkshire Council, Thames Valley Police and ECM Research.
GoDRIVE – reinventing the wheel.
Thames Valley and Hampshire have spent many years delivering Safe Drive Stay Alive, but since the evaluation of this programme in 2022, it was clear things needed to change. Our response is not about perfection but achieving a deliverable programme lead by data and research that supported all our partners – this is our journey!
Cheryl has transformed the way road safety is delivered within West Berkshire during her 16 years of service. Her commitment to working in partnership is an expression of her complete dedication to the furtherance of road safety and the need to collaborate with other professionals in maintaining standards and pursuing innovative approaches that produce benefits far beyond her own local authority’s boundaries.
Mike Bettington joined Thames Valley Police in 2003 having previously worked in Slough, Windsor, Reading, roads policing, Bracknell and Wokingham and then roads policing again, now as Chief Inspector. He’s worked on core response, and CID in the past and has been involved in major events such as the riots in London in 2011, the Olympics in 2012, as well as royal weddings and most recently the Queen’s funeral.
Elizabeth is an accomplished transport researcher and commissioner with almost two decades of experience. She has an excellent track record in influencing and contributing to road safety policy outcomes at the national level. Elizabeth has a doctorate in Transport Psychology and is the CEO and Founder of ECM Research Solutions.
Annabel Priest, Ian Edwards and Chris Boston.
Devon and Somerset Road Safety Team on behalf of Learn2Live Road Safety Partnership
Learn2Live: the fear of change and a new young driver approach.
Learn2Live has been delivering theatre style road safety education to year 12/13 students in Devon, Somerset and Cornwall since 2008. We are passionate about making sure what we deliver makes a real difference to our target audience.
Over the years, the main Learn2Live theatre style presentation has been changed many times to incorporate the latest research recommendations. After working closely with Dr. Liz Box on the PdTWER research, we developed a new presentation working with road safety consultant Ian Edwards that has removed testimonials but retained the theatre style delivery.
During this presentation we will share our journey – the challenges we faced, the format of our new presentation and our initial evaluation results.
Annabelle has worked for the road safety team at Devon and Somerset Fire Rescue Service for 6 years. She co-ordinates the Learn2Live partnership which consists of multiple organisations, such as other 999 services and councils, to hold road safety education events for 16-18 year olds in Devon, Somerset and Cornwall.
Chris has worked as road safety lead for Devon and Somerset Fire Rescue Service for five years and has been involved in Learn2Live for 10 years where he has presented true life testimonials, Chris is still operational and is passionate about road safety, he has been pivotal in the instigation of a revised methods of road safety education for 16 – 24 year olds within Devon, Somerset and Cornwall.
Ian Edwards is an award-winning road safety professional with over 25 years of experience in both the public and private sectors. Over that time, he has worked on a wide range of local, national and international road safety initiatives. Ian holds a MSc. in Social Research and Evaluation and is currently working towards a PhD at the University of Sheffield.
Nicola Wass
CEO, So-Mo
Redefining Road Safety: The Transformative Power of Behavioural Science.
Seatbelt non-wearing rates amongst Birmingham’s South-Asian communities were 6-times higher than the national average, with young people experiencing the greatest impact.
In-depth behavioural analysis underpinned a campaign that resonated deeply with our young audience. Videos, co-designed with South-Asian teenagers harnessed the potent behavioural lever 'anticipated regret,' leading to a staggering 82% reported increase in seatbelt-use among the least compliant.
Engaging 470,697 young-people, the campaign not only captured attention, it achieved unprecedented recall rates 4-8 weeks post-viewing, challenging accepted models of cognitive-processing and memory.
This presentation will be of interest to anyone seeking to implement impactful young-driver initiatives.
Bio. Nicola Wass is the driving force behind the behavioural science consultancy So-Mo. She has spent the past decade at the helm of transformative change. Under her leadership, So-Mo have pioneered innovative strategies and solutions in highways, transportation and road safety, steering countless individuals towards healthier, safer choices and habits.
Nicola's expertise in applied behavioural science is regularly sought by media outlets including BBC News with Victoria Derbyshire, Radio 4, Times Radio, The One Show, with notable mentions in The Times and The Telegraph. However, she is happiest in the dynamic environment of a conference or workshop where there is opportunity to bring the behavioural sciences to life and engage with like-minded individuals, who are also committed to meaningful change.
Shaun Helman & Jill Weekley
Chief Scientist & Principal Consultant, TRL
Achieving greater and more varied on-road practice when learning to drive. What works?
One way in which authorities have tried to improve the safety of novice drivers is to find ways to help them achieve more on-road practice during their learning period. National Highways commissioned this project to undertake a rapid review of published literature, and interviews with experts from around the world who have been involved in the implementation or research of measures designed to increase the amount and variety of on road practice in learner drivers. The work will inform National Highways specifically around the use of the strategic road network in achieving a more varied driving experience in the learner phase.
Bio. Shaun is an applied psychologist who has worked in transport for over two decades. He is Chief Scientist for Behavioural Sciences at TRL.
Jill Weekley is Technical Lead for the Driver2020 project. She has worked in Transport for nearly two decades. She is a Principal Evaluation Consultant in the behaviour team at TRL.
Olly Tayler QPM
Co-Founder, The Honest Truth
Driving instructors - an undervalued touch point with young drivers? Not anymore.
Road safety professionals know that if they’re lucky, they might get an hour or two at most with young drivers in a school or college setting. Whilst on average, new drivers spend around 30 hours with their driving instructor. Not only does this present an opportunity for additional road safety education, but the best kind, contextual and conversational - delivered at the very moment when learners are deciding what type of road user they want to become.
The Honest Truth has been designed to fit seamlessly into normal driving lessons. Allowing ADIs to deliver road safety education in such a way that their learners just assume ’this is how everyone learns to drive’. No homework, no classroom sessions, no e-learning. Because with 30 hours, there’s should be no need for any extra barriers.
This presentation charts THT’s progress from inception to the present moment of high-growth and explores answers to the question of what role ADIs play in moulding young driver behaviour.
Bio. Having served for 30 years as a Police Officer with 13 of those on Roads Policing he has returned to the world of road safety to head up The Honest Truth working with ADIs and partnerships to help make the next generation of drivers as safe as possible.