A new road safety short film, which aims to show the often reckless behaviour of young drivers, has been launched by the Road Safety Authority (RSA).

The film, Loaded Weapon, which can be viewed online, was the winning entry in a road safety competition run by the authority. It was developed by University College Cork student, Richard Lahart.

The film focuses on three young, male friends who go out driving one night. Every time they do something dangerous, such as drive too fast, a gun is shown. The tagline at the end of the film is ‘Your car is a loaded weapon. And everyone in it has their finger on the trigger'.

"It's a sad fact but young people, particularly young males, are most at risk of dying on our roads. We wanted to come up with a new way of getting into the minds of this vulnerable group of road users, using a medium with which they are familiar and in a way that will get their attention," explained RSA chief executive, Noel Brett.

The competition, which was run in association with Setanta Insurance Services Limited, asked young people aged between 17 and 25 to develop a short film script to target the theme ‘breaking the culture of dangerous driving'.

"We wanted young people to talk to us about how they see dangerous driving among their peer group and come up with ways to address it in a way that's relevant to them. The winning entry is engaging, challenging and provocative and really shows that young people are thinking about road safety and how it affects them and their peers," commented John Beatty of Setanta Insurance.

The short film can be viewed here.