Making road sense

Making sure that children are safe on the roads doesn’t stop when they have learned to cross safely. By Adrian Walsh, director of roadsafe

At the end of the last century, around 5,000 children were killed or seriously injured on Britain’s roads every year, two in three of those accidents occurred whilst a child was out walking or playing. When the government’s Road Safety Strategy, “Tomorrow’s Roads – Safer for Everyone”, was published in March 2000, it included targets to reduce the number of people killed or seriously injured in Great Britain as a result of road traffic accidents by 40%, and a more stringent target for children (under 16 years of age). The child target is a 50% reduction compared with the average for 1994-98. The good news is that overall we are on-target. However, in some areas of the country, we are likely to fail unless all concerned with children work together. Child casualties fell by 9% in 2005. The number of children killed or seriously injured was 3,472 (down 11% on 2004). Of those, 2,134 were pedestrians, 9% down on 2004. 141 children died on the roads, 15% fewer than in 2004.

Learning to cross the road sensibly is a long-term education

When we think of children and road safety, we often tend to think simply of the essential skills taught at school – crossing the road. We often forget other key skills and procedures needed. We also tend to think of just the very young. In fact, very young children are relatively safe – it’s older children who are more high risk. But the real responsibility for children’s safety lies with parents, who should both set a good example and provide an environment where children are encouraged to understand the real risks. Most local authorities have good programmes, but one such scheme, the Children’s Traffic Club (www.trafficclub.co.uk/parents/about.asp), set up to help parents and carers teach three to four-year-old children basic road safety skills, gets right to the core of this issue. Based on a Scandinavian model, the Club has worked well for over 10 years. Parents like it because it’s easy to use and children love it because it’s fun – the best way for any child to learn. Most importantly, it saves lives.

Research has found that children from disadvantaged backgrounds are five times more likely to be killed or seriously injured on our roads than their peers from the least deprived areas. To tackle this, the Department for Transport launched the Neighbourhood Road Safety Initiative (NRSI) (www.nrsi. org.uk) as part of the government’s Dealing With Disadvantage Programme, and invited 15 local authorities to participate in the new initiative.

The authorities involved in the project are Blackpool, Blackburn with Darwen, Bradford, Liverpool, Nottingham, Sandwell and Stoke, and the Greater Manchester metropolitan districts of Bolton, Bury, Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, Tameside and Wigan. All were chosen because they have high child accident rates in line with their relatively high levels of multiple deprivation. Central government has awarded a total of £17.167m to the individual authorities and £3.5m for the regional strategy.

Organisations such as the Children’s Traffic Club make learning to cross the road fun

One NRSI campaign operating throughout Greater Manchester and parts of Lancashire began with high-profile bus advertising across each region, proclaiming: “We believe in little green men – get there safely, use a pedestrian crossing.” The “little green men” campaign enlisted the help of four “extra-terrestrials” to help highlight the dangers to pedestrians on Manchester’s roads. The “aliens” carried placards to protest at needless pedestrian road casualties and to encourage those on foot to avoid risks and to cross our roads safely.

NRSI spokesperson Andrew Wake comments: “People are still taking risks on our roads and increased use of mobile phones, personal hi-fi systems and even being engrossed in conversation can take our attention away from the dangers. “As pedestrians, we need to be aware of traffic and the danger it poses. The safest place to cross any road is a pedestrian crossing and where possible we should be using them.

“The fact that children often play on our streets and have to cross busy roads on their way to school is also part of the issue and risks tend to increase at this time of year when many children are encountering unfamiliar journeys as they travel to new secondary schools.

“Each year, over 15,000 child pedestrians receive serious or minor injuries on the nation’s roads and we think this is unacceptable. Our latest campaign is purposefully lighthearted, but we’re hoping our “little green men” will help raise some serious issues and make people think twice about taking risks on our roads.”

Young adolescents are among the most vulnerable: they overestimate their abilities, their judgement is in fact not fully honed and they assume that they are able to cope with anything. A recent study from Warwickshire showed that they display only slightly better pedestrian skills than 11- year -olds and were notably poorer than adults in most important circumstances. Most significantly, they were much more likely to underestimate the difficulty of crossing roads.

Keep your child safe by making sure that they always use their seatbelts in the car

Parents simply cannot assume that their children will be safe once they have learned to cross the road. This essential form of risk education needs to go on for many years, well into their 20’s. Extensive research has been conducted on young drivers of 17-21 years of age. Problematic attitudes and the adoption of risky behaviours appears paramount to the behavioural style of this group when on the roads. Similar attitude and behavioural notions also emerged in studies of pre-drivers (14-17-year-olds) before they even begin to learn to drive. Consequently, this can be a lethal cocktail when combined with young drivers’ inexperience and skill levels.

Again, parents need to understand that simply because a young driver has passed his or her test, he or she is not truly safe. Parents need to strike a deal with their children, which takes account of this high level of risk. Even when they have passed their driving test – and less than 40% do so at the first test – there is still more to learn; this is just the end of the beginning . . .

Getting their own car will give young people the independence you need. But for a new driver, the cost of insurance can be sky high. Statistics show that new drivers are more likely to have an accident in the first two years of passing their test than at any other time in their driving career. In fact age doesn’t matter – it’s basically down to a lack of driving experience.

However, for the young driver, attitude is a big factor – we strongly advocate that all newly qualified drivers go for Pass Plus – a scheme operated in association with insurers to make new drivers safer still: www.passplus.org.uk

Parents really do need to take an interest and learn more themselves to nurture their children to reduce the really high risk on our roads.

For more information, visit www.roadsafe.com

 

Car seat safety

If all under-fives used child safety seats, an estimated 455 lives would be saved each year

Children in cars are vulnerable at the best of times. However, in a 2003 survey, it was estimated that 6% of under fours are not restrained at all while travelling in the back of motor vehicles.

Research shows that child safety seats reduce the risk of fatal injury by 71% for infants less than one year of age and by 54% for toddlers between the ages of one and four.

If all children younger than the age of five used child safety seats, an estimated 50,000 serious injuries would be prevented and 455 lives would be saved each year. Children under three years MUST use the child restraint (that is, child seat or booster) appropriate for their weight in any vehicle (including vans and other goods vehicles).

The correct belts are needed for children three years and over. Rear-facing baby seats MUST NOT be used in a seat protected by a frontal air-bag unless the air-bag has been deactivated manually or automatically.

For more information, visit: www.childseats.org.uk

 

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