Gendarmerie Deputy Commandant Capitaine Thierry Verres talks to young people during the helmet day awareness session in French Quarter on Friday as CSI President Marie-Paule Rousseau-Cornette (left), Patrice Dubois from Hope Estate Auto Ecole and other Gendarmes look on. (Photo Robert Luckock)
Group photo with the helmet recipients and Gendarmes. (Photo Robert Luckock)
MARIGOT–Association Centre Symphorien d’Insertion (CSI) organised its last wear-a-helmet preventative initiative for the year at the kiosk in French Quarter on Friday, in the presence of members of the Gendarmerie’s mobile brigade and Deputy Commandant Capitaine Thierry Verres.
Normally three helmet awareness days are organised in the year, however, two more were organised due to the recent fatal accidents, the last being the death of Mathew Jermin in French Quarter on November 27.
It was also held on Thursday afternoon with members of Police Territorial and Gendarmerie and other partners. Préfète Déléguée Sylvie Feucher paid a visit too and there were exchanges with parents. The purpose of the initiative is to instil awareness in young people about the importance of wearing a crash helmet which can save your life, the danger of reckless behaviour when riding scooters and motorbikes on the main road and adhering to the highway code.
Young people were invited to be present and Police and Gendarmes made interventions on safety, stressing they were not out to punish but to advise on safety and behaviour. There have already been three fatal accidents this year involving two-wheeled vehicles, one victim was an 18-year-old girl on a quad.
Five helmets were donated by CSI to five selected young people and three on Thursday, paid for by the subvention from the Prefecture under the Politique de la Ville, which is funding the project and driving school training programmes. The youths were also invited to register for driving school lessons.
“We are working on getting a complete package together that’s affordable for young people that will include driving school lessons and a special price for insurance,” CSI President Marie-Paule Rousseau-Cornette explained. “We have already got a 50-per-cent reduction at the schools for the motorbike lessons. Since Hurricane Irma we see a lot of kids who need help. They have had to start back everything from scratch. Three young kids have died and that’s not acceptable.”
Rousseau Cornette said selection for the helmets is based on observation, interest of the kids themselves and consultation with parents. They receive the helmets on the condition they register for lessons to obtain their driving license.
“Seeing the young people here today, they are the ones we see on the road every day, so I regard it as a success. It’s not about the quantity but about the quality of young people, who understand that we are trying to help them,” she added.
The driving school partners in the initiative are Hope Estate Auto Ecole and Auto Moto Ecole. For 14-year-old riders, seven hours of training is mandatory to obtain the permit AN to drive a
50cc scooter. For the A1 permit (16 years old) seven hours is also required after which they have to pass a test.
Capitaine Verres applauded the helmet day initiative undertaken by CSI. “It’s an indispensable initiative. Scooters and motor bikes are implicated in 80 per cent of accidents. If not wearing a helmet when you fall it is 100-per-cent certain you will have injuries or lose your life.”
CSI has a new location near the Gendarmerie in French Quarter where it will conduct its activities and projects including the next helmet day awareness sessions.
Source: The Daily Herald https://www.thedailyherald.sx/islands/83937-csi-organises-third-never-without-my-crash-helmet-initiative-in-fq
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