THE Safer Roads Partnership in Warwickshire and West Mercia have launched ‘DriveVR’ – an innovative new Virtual Reality app for young drivers and passengers, providing real-life driving experiences and allowing young people to see the outcomes of bad driving decisions to encourage them not to make the same mistakes in real life.
DriveVR is one of the first Virtual Reality (VR) initiatives in the UK promoting road safety messages. Aimed at young drivers and passengers aged 16-24, DriveVR aims to highlight how a split-second decision in the car as a driver or passenger could change the rest of your life.
The app is free to download for iPhone and Android and allows players to choose and customise a character and explore their social media timeline, before encountering fully immersive VR driving events.
ontaining eight different VR driving events, players can see first-hand through their character’s eyes how bad decisions can lead to a road traffic collision. Driving events focus on common causes of road traffic collisions, including: speeding, mobile phones, drink driving, drug driving, passenger distractions, seatbelts, rural roads and pedestrian safety.
Anna Higgins from the Safer Roads Partnership, said: “We’re really pleased to launch DriveVR and promote road safety messages to young people in a much different and much more innovative way than we ever have before, through a virtual reality app.
“The unfortunate reality is that young people aged 16-24 continue to be over-represented in collision figures, both locally in Warwickshire and West Mercia, and nationally. Engaging with this age group is a priority for us and we aim to provide them with simple information which will allow them to make the right choices as drivers, passengers and pedestrians. Promoting this information through virtual reality is a really exciting step for us and literally puts them in the driving seat, allowing them to see the consequences of their actions – both in the short-term and for the rest of their life.”
The app has been designed to work with Google Cardboard VR and other compatible virtual reality headsets (Compatible mobile device required). Videos can also be viewed in 360 without a headset.
To download the free app, visit www.drivevr.co.uk and follow the links to the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store.
