The magazine, "Drive Alive!", was the brainchild of the Young Enterprise Group - Fascination - based at St Ambrose High School in Coatbridge.
The 18 members of the group were so concerned at the horrific road casualties among their peer group that they decided to publish the magazine to raise awareness of the issues and help improve young people's driving skills.
The group compiled the content of the magazine after consulting safety organisations such as Brake and KDS and sought the endorsement of Scotland's Transport Minister, Stewart Stevenson. The end result was a glossy A5 magazine which will be distributed to all secondary schools in North Lanarkshire free of charge. In his introduction to the magazine, Mr Stevenson said:
"The entire 18 strong group contributed toward the content, design and production of the magazine and its Editor Chris Cameron, 17, who is also Managing Director of the Young Enterprise Company Fascination, said: "As young drivers ourselves we were horrified at the number of accidents that occur among our age group. The statistics are particularly alarming among male teenage drivers and we wanted to get the message across that you can have fun driving without putting yourself or your passengers at risk. We also wanted to get home the very practical point that insurance for young male drivers is much more expensive as a result of the high accident rate and it would be in everyone's interests to bring these statistics back to reasonable levels."
The magazine was formally launched at St Ambrose High school by Christine Pollock, the Executive Director of Learning and Leisure Services for North Lanarkshire**. Representatives from KDS and Brake also attended the launch together with representatives from other schools in the area.
The free distribution of the magazine was made possible thanks to the support of local advertisers and sponsors.
For further information, contact:
Ruth Gordon, Business Education Department, St Ambrose High School, Coatbridge 01236 427671