Two New Zealand high school students who attended a RYDA Road Safety workshop in the Hutt Valley last year, were so inspired by what they learnt, they decided to create a roadside emergency booklet for drivers to put in their glove box. The students, called Grace Olsen and Lauren Excell, wrote and designed the booklet as part of the Young Enterprise Scheme (YES) in New Zealand.
It’s a testament to RYDA that these two students were inspired to write such a booklet after completing a RYDA workshop last year. Grace and Lauren, both students at St Oran’s College in the Hutt Valley, Wellington, explain how RYDA motivated them in the booklet’s introduction:
“After we both completed the RYDA road safety course in 2022 and we got our restricted licences at the beginning of 2023, we realised that if we were to be involved in some type of auto situation we wouldn’t know how to approach the issue. After asking our friends, classmates and family members, we found that this is an issue many can relate to, and so CruiseKiwi was born with the help of YES.
We hope this booklet will make the drivers that own it feel more confident on the roads and about the decisions they make on the roads.”
Grace and Lauren have called the company they set up to produce the booklet – CruiseKiwi – and their booklet is titled: Everyday guide to breakdown. The girls say they hope their booklet will give new drivers the confidence to make the right decisions if they’re in stressful breakdown situations.
The RYDA workshop motivated the students to develop a strategy to handle one of the many challenges faced by young road users
Grace and Lauren, now both 17, have said about their new booklet: “We both love the freedom of driving as we both got our restricted licenses recently but it has also made us aware of the negative things that could happen to drivers on our roads. We are so excited for people to read and use our book as we feel there is so much important information that drivers just like us will find beneficial.”
The girls explained that as new drivers themselves, they developed the booklet because they realised there was a gap in the market for a simple breakdown guide for drivers who don’t have much experience with mechanical issues.
“We can prove that our book is trustworthy as we have gained trusted sponsors who provided and checked some of the information contained in the book,” they wrote in the booklet’s introduction. “We would love to thank our amazing sponsors who have listened to an idea two school girls had and stuck with it,” they added.
Road Safety Education’s (providers of the RYDA Programme) NZ General Manager, Maria Lovelock said: “We continue to be impressed by the students we meet at RYDA – young people who are eager to turn their learning into action and become active road citizens. Congratulations on a great initiative, Grace and Lauren.”
For more information about CruiseKiwi you can visit here.
For more about RYDA Road Safety Workshops, visit here.
