Killing with carelessness

While most parents worry about paedophiles and drugs, traffic is still the No 1 cause of death among teenagers. LARSOA chair Steve Whitehouse contributed to a feature on this subject that appeared in The Guardian on 28 July.

The article, written by Kate Figes, suggests that parents ‘worry about predatory paedophiles, but few of us take the time to inculcate the rudiments of road safety’.

The author goes on to argue that children these days need ‘survival skills’ but that because more and more children are being driven everywhere they fail to pick up basic road-safety skills through the experience of being a pedestrian.

Steve Whitehouse agrees. "Most parents would drive right into the school hall if they could," he says. "They don't realise that by trying to protect their children now they are creating a whole range of problems for them in future because they can't judge risk."

He goes on to say that far too many parents fail to give their children basic road-safety training - and that children need more these days than just the Green Cross Code. "You don't teach children to cross roads by rules. We say first, find a safe place to cross - but often there isn't one; or don't cross near bends - but some bends can be safe. We need to teach children to make their own risk-assessment decisions rather than just to look left and right and left again, because the real danger might be diagonal," he says.

The article goes on to say that the government is committed to encouraging cycling but the author questions the wisdom of this. "As a parent, I can't help but feel that there is something odd about encouraging children over 10 to ride their bikes in the road when that is where they are most vulnerable," she says.

Steve Whitehouse agrees, but feels there are huge gains to be made in terms of understanding road safety ‘if they've been on a proper cycling proficiency course, wear a helmet and have the right attitude in that they're aware of where the dangers lie’. He adds that cyclists must be ‘able to give out the right messages to drivers, and be able to mentally step out from their own body in order to understand how a driver sees them’.

But the author concludes that ‘this is a tall order for any child, particularly when so many adult drivers seem incapable of extending the same courtesy to pedestrians’.

To read the full article go to: http://www.guardian.co.uk