YOUNGSTERS from the Wee County and beyond heard of the horrific consequences of a car crash when they attended a hard-hitting show this week.

Safe Drive, Stay Alive was on at the Macrobert Arts Centre at Stirling University in a bid to educate teenagers and showcase how dangerous and careless driving can ruin lives.

Rather than just simply passing messages on, organisers from the Central Safe Drive group aimed right at the heart in what was an emotive show including emergency services personnel, survivors of road traffic collisions as well as their families.

At the start of the event, school pupils - including children from Lornshill Academy who attended on Monday, February 5 – arrived to a real party atmosphere with Capital FM DJ Brad Yule spinning club hits and getting the crowd going.

This resonated with the beginning of the main act and a specially-created film, a dramatised recreation of a real incident which happened on the local road and which included people of the audience’s age.

The pictures were, at specific parts, intermitted by professionals from the police, paramedics, firefighters, doctors and nurses, who gave speeches and presentations.

Many of them were directly involved in that incident and they spoke not just of the facts, figures and technical details, but more importantly of the devastating affect on family, friends and even themselves.

Road deaths have been on the down in the area in the past years, and it is said the show contributed significantly to that – in the first 10 years it ran, 40,000 Forth Valley pupils attended.

While the youngsters were being pumped up at the start, 36 glowsticks were thrown into the crowd.

Later it was explained that they represented 36 young people who died on the roads in the past year.

Two were even more special in different colours – they were for two people who died on local roads.

Central Safe Drive’s Alan Faulds, a firefighter stationed in Alloa, told the Advertiser: “This year we’ve had two deaths locally, so it just shows the importance of keeping a show like this going and to keep it high profile.”

He added: “The show definitely makes people better drivers, the statistics prove that. I am proud of the people coming along and doing this – they take their own annual leave, they don’t get paid for coming along and it is a fantastic team that has been together for 10 years now and they do make a difference.”

Alan is encouraging everyone to head along to the public show tomorrow, Thursday February 8, evening at 7pm with doors open from 6pm, especially parents of children who attended this week.