The true tale of five teenagers' life changing car crash and a recreation of the vehicle they were travelling is appearing at Truro College from this week.

Firefighters from Truro Community Fire Station are delivering a series of events at Truro College, specifically aimed at 17 – 24 year olds, in a bid to help raise their road safety awareness and reduce the numbers of young drivers being killed or seriously injured on Cornwall’s roads.

A vehicle which appears to have been involved in a collision will be on display at the college from Monday 20 February for a four week period. Each week fire crews will visit the site to engage with students where each visit will focus on a different safety message, including drug driving, the dangers of using a mobile phone while driving and in-car distraction.

A story board will accompany the vehicle, which is based on a real collision that involved a young driver carrying five passengers who, driving dangerously, drove into the path of a lorry. Six people had to be extracted from the two vehicles involved.

The young driver who caused the crash pleaded guilty to driving dangerously, and the judge heard the driver took responsibility for the collision after dangerously weaving their car around deliberately into the path of an oncoming vehicle, not paying attention, texting on their phone and showing off.

The teenage driver was jailed for causing serious injuries to six people – including themselves, banned from driving for two years and will have to take an extended test after their disqualification period.

Young car drivers and passengers are a particularly vulnerable road user group that are significantly over represented in road traffic casualties and are the most likely age group to experience a collision.

The overall aim of this initiative is to encourage students to make a positive change to their driving behaviour in a bid to reduce the chance of them being involved in, or causing a collision. Students will be encouraged to make a safer driving pledge during the crews’ visits.

Paul Walker, chief fire officer, said: “Road Safety is a key focus for our prevention activities and changing people’s driving behaviours is essential to our success. This targeted campaign by Truro fire and rescue crews aims to increase awareness of the devastating impact road traffic collisions have on drivers, passengers, families, friends, emergency response crews and our economy. This supports our aim to reduce the number of people killed or seriously injured on Cornwall roads.”