Warwickshire Pcso given road safety educator award

Sharron Underwood, of Warwick Rural East Safer Neighbourhood Team, received the award for Road Safety Educator of the Year at road safety charity Brake’s annual reception at the Houses of Parliament last Wednesday (January 15).

She said: “I am very proud to receive this award from Brake, and to be part of the 2young2die project.

“I am extremely passionate about engaging young people to help them protect themselves and others, and I am glad that I have been able to do something to reduce devastating road crashes and casualties.

“I look forward to continuing my work and helping my fellow officers at Warwickshire Police make a difference to road safety and prevent terrible tragedies.”

2young2die aims to help young people keep themselves and others safe on the roads and speaks out against dangerous driving to prevent catastrophic crashes.

Young drivers are involved in a huge proportion of serious road crashes - one in eight licence holders is under 25, yet one in four fatal and serious injury crashes involves a driver of this age.

Over the past three years Sharron has delivered interactive workshops, seminars and one-to-one sessions to more than 1,000 students - mainly engineering apprentices at the Trident Technology and Business Centre at Warwickshire College in Leamington.

Warwickshire Police have credited her with a significant decrease in the number of road collisions involving students from the college.

In April last year, Sharron was awarded a Chief Constable’s Commendation.