Road Safety Week – kids say slow down!

During Road Safety Week 2003 – which took place in late September – the road safety charity Brake released the results of a survey of 1,500 school children aged 7-14 years from inner city areas across the country, which was carried out earlier in the year. The survey revealed some interesting and important findings, including:

• 40 per cent of children are scared by roads when on foot
  
• 75 per cent want more speed cameras
  
• 50 per cent describe the road outside their school as dangerous
  
• half say they need a safer place to cross outside their school
  
• 70 per cent think drivers should go slower near their school
  
• one in three say the road outside their home is dangerous

10 per cent of the children interviewed claimed to have been hit by a vehicle while on foot, and 38 per cent said they had narrowly escaped being hit. 59 per cent said they know someone who has been killed or hurt in a road crash.

Sometimes the dangerous drivers are parents themselves on the school run. The survey found that nine per cent of children say their
parents drive too fast while 37 per cent say they have told an adult to slow down when a passenger in their car.

Road Safety Week launches were staged in Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, London, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, Norwich and Oxford. Each launch featured local children releasing balloons to commemorate the number of child pedestrians killed and injured on roads in their region, and urging drivers to ‘slow down in town’.

Brake distributed over 11,000 road safety ‘action packs’ to schools for use during and beyond Road Safety Week. Action packs include road safety posters, a guide to teaching road safety and instructions on how to take part in Beep Beep! Day (nurseries) or a Hazard Spot competition (primary schools).

Road Safety Week 2004 will be held 8-14 November. The theme is Sober Up, and Brake will focus on the increasing number of drink drive fatalities and injuries. Ideas for Road Safety Week 2004 are welcome - please contact Sarah Fatica on 01484 559909 or by email at sfatica@brake.org.uk.