Building on last year’s success, Victoria Police will once again host the young driver program, Cool Heads.

The free event brings together emergency service representatives, who will share first-hand experiences from major crashes to warn young drivers of road risks.

Echuca police Leading Senior Constable Shane Roberts said the program was well received last year despite the challenging content.

“Last year we had lots of young people attend with parents or a parent, and they were very engaged,” he said.

“The content is confronting, but I guess from our perspective you can’t deliver it any other way.

“That’s what we deal with when we’re confronted at these types of scenes, that’s the message we want to send to these kids — it’s totally preventable, but they are shocking horrible scenes that we’re confronted with when we attend them.

“It's very rare for us to attend an accident — they’re always what we call collisions because there’s always a contributing factor that quite often can be preventable.”

The event will focus on driver behaviour that can contribute to collisions such as speed, fatigue, distractions, mobile phones, other people in the car, drugs and alcohol and even seat belts.

The speakers on the night will include representatives from the local search and rescue and Victoria Police.

Regional paramedic Brent Law will share the devastating realities of emergency call-outs, where victims are left with serious injuries such as spinal injuries, traumatic brain injuries, amputations and other life-altering trauma.

Sergeant Stephen Hill, from Melbourne’s Major Collision Investigation Unit, will follow with a sobering look at the crash sites police face, and the consequences for offending drivers.

Last, but not least, attendees will hear from Nilsson Smyth, who was just 21 when his decision to drink and drive claimed a life.

Now working with Amber Community, a road incident support and education service, Mr Smyth shares his story to warn others about the devastating consequences of reckless driving.

Mr Smyth said his mission, both during his time in prison and since his release, had been to help change dangerous behaviours on the road.

“While I was inside, they allowed me to go out and talk to the community,” he said.

“I was angry hearing about people making the same stupid mistakes, it just wrecked so many families ... people don’t really often think of the effects it can have.

“I’ve been involved with (Amber Community) post-release to really try and curb the behaviour that I was seeing and ... just trying to make kids learn because it’s usually the youth that are doing it.”

According to Leading Senior Constable Roberts, 16 to 18-year-olds were some of the safest drivers on the roads, but become the most at risk once unsupervised.

Statistics also show young male drivers are three times more likely to be involved in either fatal or serious injury collisions every year.

Echuca police Sergeant Andrew Neil said programs such as Cool Heads were an invaluable resource to help combat these statistics.

“This program and others like it are very important. We’re in that enforcement area with highway patrol, but I think our most important tool is education,” he said.

“We really need to get the message out there to concentrate on the roads, and Cool Heads is a great place for that education.”

The event will be held on Wednesday, September 10 at the Echuca Twin Rivers Primary School.

Attendees are encouraged to arrive by 6.40pm for a 7pm start.

To register for the event, visit https://tinyurl.com/s6wwks5x

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Wednesday, 10th December 2025

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