Falklands : Young Falklands' Drivers Face Off Road Challenge
Submitted by Falkland Islands News Network (Juanita Brock) 18.06.2009 (Article Archived on 02.07.2009)
Last week saw service personnel taking to the roads in their Landrovers and demonstrating some excellent driving at Mount Pleasant Complex (MPC) during a “Young Drivers’ Challenge”. The competition aimed to practice and enhance the driving skills of drivers in order to promote and improve road safety within the Falkland Islands especially those within the 17 – 25 year age group.
Photo (c) Photo Section MPC
Splash! Photo © Photo Section MPC
Young Drivers Challenge
Last week saw service personnel taking to the roads in their Landrovers and demonstrating some excellent driving at Mount Pleasant Complex (MPC) during a “Young Drivers’ Challenge”. The competition aimed to practice and enhance the driving skills of drivers in order to promote and improve road safety within the Falkland Islands especially those within the 17 – 25 year age group.
Each of the 20 drivers rotated around six different events including individually reversing around a set course, cross country driving, vehicle manoeuvring, UK highway code quiz, and as two man teams negotiating a ‘special circuit’ wearing blacked out goggles and vehicle fault finding/wheel changing.
Although the weather was good, the cross country circuit was deceptive and five vehicles required recovery. One vehicle was so badly bogged in that the BV 206 tracked vehicle, which was on standby, had to be called into action; everyone soon learnt that the lesson was better route selection and maintaining forward momentum!
The overall winners were the Resident Rapier Battery which is perhaps not surprising given that their job involves manoeuvring the Rapier platforms over rough terrain, but a great effort nonetheless. Individual results of the competition are as follows:
• Best Reversing: MT Ops B team.
• Best Fault Finding: Resident Rapier Battery
• Best Special Circuit: Joint Communications Unit Falkland Islands
• Best Cross Country: Resident Rapier Battery
• Best Vehicle Manoeuvring: 460 Port Troop RLC
WO1 Tam Quinn said “The competition was a great success and it also highlighted the overall Road Safety message to all, an area in which all service drivers have a role to play, not just young drivers. This is particularly important during the adverse weather conditions experienced here during the winter”.
Source: Media Ops MPC
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