YOUNG soldiers know they are at risk on the battlefield but Hampshire traffic officers have been reminding them they are also battling the odds and face huge dangers on our roads.

Young male drivers under the age of 21 are ten times more likely to have a car accident than male drivers aged 35 or over while 40 per cent of passengers killed or seriously injured were in a car driven by a young driver.

The situation among soldiers mirrors the general population and some battalions have seen as many killed on UK roads in the months following return from deployment in Afghanistan than during their tours. Traffic officer PC Paul White has been working on an education programme at the Army Air Corp base at Middle Wallop in a bid to chip away at these statistics by highlighting the dangers of older vehicles and the need for safe, sober driving. With the help of Andover’s Race Dynamic and Halfords he rigged a Ford Ka with ten common defects than can lead to danger to illustrate his point to 17 and 18-year-old new drivers and asked soldiers to identify them.

“I want to give these newly qualified drivers, who may also have recently joined the Army, some insight into the sort of problems and defects that we regularly find on older vehicles,” he said.

“We have also given road safety presentations for the past two years which have often included half an hour from Angela Ledsham, a widow whose husband was the victim of a drunk driver. It is particularly effective and it is not uncommon to see a few tears in there after she has spoken.”