POLICE officers working to improve driving standards on Bradford’s roads are taking their safety message into schools and colleges.

Sergeant Cameron Buchan, who leads Operation Steerside, said he and his team had been delivering a hard-hitting presentation for sixth-form students across the Bradford district, and also in Leeds and Calderdale, to educate the drivers of the immediate future.

Since it was started on February 1, Steerside has snared more than 6,100 dangerous drivers.

Sgt Buchan said of the bid to educate young people: “If we can prevent people doing things in the first place, to the point where they don’t do it, it is much better.

“We are visiting schools. I recently did a presentation on Steerside and the dangers of bad driving to 900 students, including Bradford students, at the Victoria Theatre in Halifax.

“We are visiting driver-age children, so we have been going round the sixth-form students with a hard-hitting presentation on what happens when things go wrong on the road and when you mess about in a car.

“Feedback from teachers and sixth-form heads has been positive. It is really getting to the students and making them think about things and talk to each other.”

The success of the operation, which is currently featuring in Channel Five’s Traffic Cops programme on Monday evenings, has also inspired a similar initiative in neighbouring Calderdale.

“I have briefed Calderdale Council about Steerside,” said Sgt Buchan. “That led to Operation Hawmill starting in Halifax. It is effectively Steerside in the Halifax area.

“The Council was impressed to the extent that they wanted it in Calderdale. It is how Operation Hawmill was born.”

Sgt Buchan added: “Steerside is not going away. We are keeping it going.

“It is part of the police vocabulary now – part of the police day.

“The very first thing was for two months initially. The success of the first two months allowed us to carry it on.

“The local press and the local police joined forces to tackle something that has been a problem for Bradford for a long, long time, and it is time we got on top of it.

“We want Bradford to be synonymous with good driving, not just bad driving.”