RYDA, Road Safety Education Limited's flagship program, is an essential learning experience for senior high school students that aims to change the way young people think and act on the road - not only as drivers but also passengers. This unique program, designed to support government messaging, is benchmarked against best-practice guidelines. To date 36,000 students have graduated from the RYDA programme across New Zealand since its introduction in 2007. BOC, NZ Steel and Rotary are key partners who are assisting to keep the programme affordable for all. Over a similar time frame, the road toll in the 15 to 24 year old demographic has dropped nationwide by 52%. This is due to many factors including the graduated licensing scheme, safer cars, better roads and, importantly the key role of education. In contrast, New Zealand’s road toll statistics have increased for the last two consecutive years. But the15 to 24 year old demographic remains overrepresented in the road toll. This demographic represents 15% of the population yet accounted for 24% of the 321 road fatalities last year. Evidence suggests that young people are most at risk of being involved in a serious crash in the first six months after transitioning from being a supervised learner to an independent provisional driver. Sixteen percent of this years holiday road toll was due to inexperience. The loss of a single life is one too many and the impact these crashes have on friends, families and communities is a national tragedy – especially when they are so young, yet it happens every week and each road fatality carries a social cost of $4.5 million dollars.