Driving is a privilege and not a right. That will be the message of a new driver awareness programme for transition year students due to be implemented throughout the country by the National Safety Council next year.

Aiden Stacey, the Council's marketing and promotions executive, said a module was currently being formulated that would encourage 15 and 16-year-olds to adopt a safe and responsible attitude to driving - before they reached the legal driving age.

"If we can get the students early enough they'll learn and the things they learn will stay with them," he says.

Stacey reckons Transition Year is an appropriate time to offer a driver awareness course, before the pressure of the Leaving Cert make both teachers and students understandably unwilling to devote time to a non-core subject.

"Transition Year students are still at the stage where if we get a solid safety message across it will go in. Before they get into a car there should be a realisation of the fact that it's almost a privilege rather than a right to be the driver," he says.

Stacey hopes there will be an IT element to the module in the form of a CD-Rom package or Internet connection. "It will be as participative as possible so we will not be perceived as the lecturing, finger-pointing people we are often seen as by that age group."

An independent driver awareness programme has been operating in Donegal for a number of years. A six-week pilot scheme was introduced at St Eunan's College, a boys' school in Letterkenny, in 1998. Participating students accompanied local gardai during speed check duties, were shown the cells in the local garda station and witnessed a court case involving a driving offence. Ambulance personnel visited the school to present slide shows of the mangled remains of cars, causing some boys to leave the room in shock.

Some of the students who took part in the original scheme two years ago are now learning to drive, although many, including Damien McCormack (17), say they are prevented from doing so by the high cost of insurance for young male drivers.

However, Damien thinks the course will stand him in good stead when he begins to take lessons, and he has been impressed by the driving skills of his 18-year-old friend, Damien McGoohan, who also completed the course.

"I've been in a car with Damien and I felt safe, he was a good driver. Because of what we had learned on the course, I was watching what he was doing and he was very aware of what was going on, using his mirrors properly and so on. "There's that many deaths on the road around here and that does scare me a bit. It would make you think twice about going on the roads. Now if I was going to take my test I would definitely be more careful after having done the course. Everything we were told is going to be in the back of my mind all the time."

Damien's classmate, Cian Friel (18), is currently taking driving lessons. He is very aware of safety on the roads because a friend of his was recently involved in a crash only a week after passing his driving test. "He had a crowd of boys in the car, just young fellas showing off. I'd be careful after hearing that because it's not my car I'm driving, it's my parents'. That's what I'd be worried about," he says.

For Cian, the experience of assisting gardai on speedcheck duties made him more safety-conscious. "You're thinking more about speed traps because you know they are there. It's a good course because it makes you more aware. Everyone should do it."

The scheme was the brainchild of Rena O'Herlihy, transition year co-ordinator at St Eunan's. Donegal's rate of fatal accidents is higher than anywhere else in the country, and O'Herlihy formulated the module with this in mind.

"Local driving instructors told us that an awful lot of boys had already picked up a lot of bad habits when they came to them for lessons," she says. "So the motivation behind it was to make the boys more aware of their responsibilities before sitting behind the wheel of a car and to make them aware of what a lethal vehicle a car can be.

"Given the age group involved, there wasn't any question of them doing driving lessons, but they needed to be made aware of the carnage on our roads. "It's not today or tomorrow that we will see the results. It's sometime in the future that they'll remember what we taught them."

The programme was strengthened by the co-operation of the Donegal Inter-agency Road Working Group, which comprises Donegal County Council, the North-Western Health Board, the gardai and the National Roads Authority.

The support of the inter-agency group enabled the module to be offered to eight single-sex and mixed schools in Donegal last year, and there are hopes that it will be extended to cover 24 schools in the coming year.

Janet Gaynor, of the NorthWestern Health Board, welcomed the news that a programme similar to the one pioneered in Donegal would be introduced nationwide.

"Whenever there are any pressures on society, we are always clamouring `What are the schools doing about it?' What the teachers liked about this course was that they were not left on their own. They were doing it in partnership," she says.

"We would be delighted to see a national programme. Ours is a local response at a pilot stage but it would be great to see something on a national footing that's promoted and supported nationally. It's something all students in Ireland should have access to."

At the other end of the country, Debra James, who lives in Gorey, Co Wexford, is also attempting to raise awareness of the importance of driver education in schools. She advocates a programme based on the American system. In some states, successful completion of a driver education module is a requirement for graduation from high school.

"I was in the US in the 1960s and I took driver's training and I had to complete it before I got my learner's permit. It would solve all the problems we have here," she said.

"There's not a day goes by when I don't see young men screaming around the roads here. Something has to be done. There's only one way to stop it and that's through education. In the US, driver education is valued because it helps to stop the aggressive, thrill-seeking behaviour of young men. It makes them realise they are not invincible. To show them that they are mortal is the only way to reduce the death toll."