Safety day to be held after spike in over 50s involved in Melton road collisions

The event, on Thursday June 27 at the town’s Nottingham Road fire station, will feature live demonstrations and a chance to meet crew members and receive advice on how to stay safe on roads.

Scott Smith, day crew manager at the station, told the Melton Times: “We’ve seen a significant rise in the number of over 50s drivers involved in accidents in this area during recent weeks.

“We don’t know why this is but we work proactively so we wanted to host an event where we could get safety advice over to people in this age group and all other drivers.

“There is no obvious reason why more over 50s have been involved in collisions and we all we can do is get our safety advice out to them.

“They should always ensure they are wearing a seatbelt and be wary of distractions such as mobile phones and, perhaps, grandchildren who are travelling with them.”

The safety day starts at 12 noon and runs until 4pm with all members of the public invited to attend.

Attendees will get a chance to experience what it is like to be in a road collision by sitting in the fire service’s V4 simulation car using a virtual reality headset.

The fire and rescue service motorbike, will be on show and crews will be dispensing road and fire safety advice.

The event will end with a real life road traffic collision demonstration where firefighters will use cutters to remove the roof of a vehicle to release trapped casualties.