From SADD to the Police Force: A Police Officer's Journey to Safer Roads
At SADD, we love sharing stories of how our past and present members are making a difference beyond their time at school. Mel recently caught up with Constable Daniel Curtis from the Tactical Crime Unit in Hamilton, who started as a SADD student and has taken his passion for safer roads into a career with the New Zealand Police. His journey shows the powerful influence SADD can have and the lasting impact of youth voices in road safety.
How do you think your experience in SADD influenced your decision to become a Police Officer?
I think SADD definitely had an impact upon me for becoming a Police Officer. When I was at High School at Rodney College, I was part of SADD. We had a mock-up with the local firefighters and SADD, where a crashed car was brought into the school grounds and the Jaws of life were used to pry open the car where students were ‘trapped’ inside.
We had several presentations around dangerous driving, drink driving and people using their cell phones while driving or not wearing their seatbelts. The needless death that these caused resonated with me to be a safer driver. I ended up completing a Defensive Driving course to shorten the time between getting my restricted and full licence, but also because I wanted to be a safer driver on the road.
During my final year at High School, we fundraised for a SADD sign, and it was put outside Rodney College on SH1. My time and experience with SADD guided me to want to help people and reduce needless death on our roads in New Zealand.
Were there specific SADD initiatives or campaigns that particularly resonated with you and perhaps guided your career path?
For Police the 4 main causes of death on our roads are defined as RIDS. Restraints, Impairment, Distractions and Speed. The campaigns targeting these, resonated with me. I remember watching a campaign about a kid on their way home getting a text message and taking their eyes off the road for a moment, resulting in a fatal car crash. The pain it caused to her family and friends resonated with me. Still now going to fatal accidents as a Police Officer, the thing that gets me most is the family and how it affects them.
Another campaign I remember, was a young girl was the victim of a car crash where the other driver was using their phone while driving and hit her car, leaving her as a paraplegic with the offending driver having no injuries. The lasting lifelong effect it had on her was massive.
Catching drink drivers and giving people tickets for using their phones, speeding and not wearing their seatbelts, or worse, not ensuring the children in their cars are wearing seatbelts are rewarding as everyone is potentially a fatal accident prevented, and a grieving family saved from that grief.
As a result, my passion in policing lies in Road Safety, and I am looking to the Road Policing Team as my future career path within the Police
How has your perspective on dangerous driving evolved from your time in SADD to now being a police officer?
As a Police Officer you see just how much speed, drinking and driving, using your phone while driving and not wearing a seatbelt while in a vehicle has a major effect on people when they crash. Since being in SADD as a highschooler dangerous driving seems to have gotten worse with dirt bike riders, driving dangerously on our roads and drivers in cars fleeing from Police and driving dangerously on purpose to prevent Police from being able to pursue. This puts their lives and every other road user’s life in danger by doing so.
More and more un-road worthy cars without warrants or regular servicing been driven on our roads, and often while someone is impaired, not wearing their seat belt, distracted or speeding. If the vehicle isn’t mechanically sound and paired with dangerous driving, it can have a very real and very destructive result on our roads.
Do you think SADD adequately prepared you or your peers for the realities of dangerous driving situations?
I think so. It helped to give me the perspective that accidents can occur any anytime and to be wary of other drivers, their skill level, and that they may be distracted while they are driving.
From your current vantage point, what advice would you give to current SADD groups to make their efforts even more impactful?
Keep raising awareness to your fellow students. Accidents can happen at any time to anyone even if you are the greatest and safest driver in the world. Always be mindful of other road users and pay attention to the roads.
The work you all do reduces harm and continues to save lives by educating road users, even if you don’t see the results yourself you are making a positive impact.
What are the most common dangerous driving behaviours you see among young people today?
Overconfident and Arrogance. The mindset that they know everything and are bullet proof and an accident wouldn’t happen to them. Speeding, driving Impaired, distractions of using your phone and not wearing your seatbelts can have a life an altering impact on your lives, your friends and families lives and the lives of other road users and their friends and families.
What role do you think parents and schools play in preventing dangerous driving among young people?
Education. Educating young people that driving dangerously can negatively impact a lot of people. The best way to lower the road toll is prevention and education. Pull your car over to answer that phone call or text message that is so important. Organise to have a parent or friend pick you up when you have been out drinking rather than driving. Always wear your seatbelt, no matter if you’re going near or far (Thank you Ronald McDonald haha), and drive to the speed limit, the difference of a few kms can cause a crash to go from minor to fatal.
What advice you would give our youth today that are driving on our roads?
Be mindful of your own driving and other road users. Take precautions and be safe. If you stick to the speed limits, don’t drink and drive or use prescription or non-prescription drugs that may impair your driving ability, wear your seatbelt and remove distractions while driving, especially your cell phone you will make yourself as safe as possible when on the road.
Also keeping your vehicle warranted and serviced goes a long way to road safety! If your vehicle gets a warrant once a year, get your service done in the middle of the year so your vehicle is being checked by a mechanic every 6 months minimum. Cars in poor road condition coupled with dangerous driving causes fatal accidents.
Stories like this remind us that the lessons and experiences gained through SADD can stay with people for life, shaping the choices they make and the careers they pursue. Whether it’s influencing one person to drive safer, or inspiring someone to dedicate their career to saving lives on our roads, the impact of SADD reaches far beyond school. A huge thank you to Daniel for sharing his journey with us and for the work he continues to do to keep our communities safe.