Lancashire County Council is looking to revitalise driving awareness performances for young people after they stopped over the pandemic.

It is currently trialling a new package called ‘DriveFit’ which has commissioned a trial of a ‘Theatre in Education” production in high schools.

Before the pandemic, Lancashire Road Safety Partners delivered a production called ‘Safe Drive Stay Alive’, which used a real-life collision involving young people in Lancashire to educate safe driving to young people.

The announcement comes a week after two teenagers from Preston died in a car crash, one of whom featured on Andrew Flintoff's 'Field of Dream's TV series.

A spokesperson for Lancashire County Council said: “We work closely with the police on learning from fatal collision contributory factors and, if appropriate for us to do so, we support education awareness.

“We are currently reviewing and trailing new campaigns and will in the near future introduce a refreshed education package for younger drivers.

“The learning from these trials and their reviews will inform a new younger driver education package for Lancashire.”

Currently, Lancashire road safety partners deliver ‘Alive to Drive’ road safety events which target younger drivers with an emphasis on safe driving responsibilities and also ‘Wasted Lives’ which is delivered in high schools.

Road safety charity IAM RoadSmart revealed that 1,128 dangerous driving endorsements were issued to licence holders in Britain aged 17 to 25.

Typically, this includes behaviour such as speeding, racing or driving aggressively, ignoring traffic lights, overtaking dangerously or knowing a vehicle has a dangerous fault or unsafe load.

Despite the group making up just seven per cent of all full licence holders, they accounted for 38 per cent of the total number of these endorsements issued to motorists of all ages.

The proportion has risen from 27 per cent in 2021 and 36 per cent last year.

About a fifth of drivers crash within a year of passing their driving test, and nearly 5,000 people were killed or seriously injured in a crash involving a young driver in Britain in 2022.

IAM RoadSmart director of policy and standards, Nicholas Lyes, said: “Something is going awry with driving standards among younger drivers when they now account for well over a third of all new dangerous driving endorsements, while at the same time making up a small proportion of overall licence holders.”