A road safety course designed to support new drivers is now available from North Yorkshire County Council.

The Council’s road safety team has launched the course for Approved Driving Instructors, designed to give them the skills needed to teach freshly qualified drivers how to develop their ability to react to situations on the road quickly and safely.

“Our road safety team has great relationships with local driving instructors and this means we can offer them this important road safety training” said County Councillor Gareth Dadd, North Yorkshire’s Executive Member for Highways.

“The course will help the instructors meet the new professional standards set by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) which came into effect earlier this year, but the greatest benefit is that passing on the skills they learn on the course to new drivers will ultimately lead to fewer deaths and injuries on our roads.”

The course has been developed by Road Safety GB in partnership with eDriving solutions, a leader in the field of driver training and will be delivered by the county council’s own experienced driving instructors in their road safety team. Since April all driving instructors must meet a new set of standards and be assessed on a range of skills including lesson planning, risk management and teaching and learning strategies.

“This training is essential for all instructors who need to meet the new standards and the county council’s road safety team will provide the necessary skills and knowledge for them to complete the new assessment” said Honor Byford, North Yorkshire’s Road Safety Team Leader and Chair of Road Safety GB.

“When they then pass on these skills to their clients it means new drivers in the county benefit further from quality training, backed by a national road safety organisation. North Yorkshire County Council is very pleased to be able to offer this valuable service”.

Approved Driving Instructors can get more information or book onto a course by calling 01609 797479 or by emailing road.safety@northyorks.gov.uk The course fee includes membership to the Road Safety GB Academy membership for the first year.