New online courses for seat belt and cycling offenders

The next generation of online education courses for seat belt and cycling offences have been announced by UKROEd.

These will replace the existing online options for seat belts and pedal cycle offences, which have been available since 2011. They are designed to raise awareness and encourage people to make positive changes in behaviour. Thousands of offenders have been referred to them, successfully completing the courses as an alternative to prosecution.

The new contracts were signed in September 2018 and are for a minimum of three years.

Development of the courses is currently being undertaken by TTC 2000 (part of the TTC Group), while hosting and administration will be looked after by DriveTech. Both organisations were awarded the appropriate contracts following successful completion of a compliant procurement process.

Members of the UKROEd Course Development Unit (CDU) have provided a high-level specification to the team at TTC 2000, with details of learning objectives and outcomes. At present, both courses are in the design stage, with storyboarding expected during December and a first prototype of the courses available by the end of January.

UKROEd chief operations officer Ruth Purdie explained that the courses had received widespread support since they were first introduced.

Dr Fiona Fylan, who heads the UKROEd Course Development Unit, “It is important for members of the UKROEd team to work closely with the developers to ensure our courses make use of the strongest evidence on behaviour change. Having looked closely at the current courses, we have proposed a range of updates. These are now well underway, and we are excited to see the new iterations as we work towards the go-live date in 2019.”

Andy Wheeler, business development director, TTC Group, commented: “We are delighted to have been selected by UKROEd to produce the online courses. We have a proven track record in developing on-road behavioural change education programmes and access to a wide pool of experienced courseware specialists such as our partners Walkgrove Limited. Our business thrives on educating people to be safer on our roads and helping them to reduce the risk of injury through a collision and more compliant road user behaviour.”

Des Morrison, police contracts director at DriveTech, said: “We are delighted to have been awarded the managed service contract by UKROEd and we will work diligently to continue to deliver an excellent level of service. We routinely receive great feedback from delegates, and are proud to support UKROEd, through NDORS, to enable the police to help change drivers and passenger attitudes and understanding in the quest for safer roads and less casualties across the UK.”

The new courses will be available to all forces to adopt and are expected to come online in Spring 2019.

Further updates will follow from time to time and UKROEd will be working with the contractors and Police forces to enable the transition.