Schools and nurseries across the country are today (10 May) holding a ‘Beep Beep! Day’, organised by Brake to coincide with Global Road Safety Week.
Now in its 14th year, the road safety charity’s ‘Beep Beep! Day’ initiative encourages nurseries, playgroups, infant schools, children’s centres and childminders to host road safety related activities including creating posters, experimenting with toy cars and singing road safety songs.
In other developments, a new World Health Organisation (WHO) report says that speed management is the key to saving lives – while at the same time making cities more ‘liveable’ – and RoadSafe is hosting a one-day speed summit in London.
Children to participate in ‘Beep Beep! Day’
More than 50,000 pre-school children across the country are today being taught important road safety messages as part of this nationwide initiative.
Brake says that last year more than 2,000 nurseries, schools and childminders registered to take part in the ‘Beep Beep! Day’ initiative, helping more than 240,000 children improve their road safety skills.
Today’s event is the first of three Beep Beep! Days during 2017, with others scheduled for 27 September and 22 November.
Dave Nichols, community engagement manager at Brake, said: “Beep Beep! Days are a great way to start talking to children about basic road safety messages and to remind adults of their responsibilities when it comes to keeping roads safe and protecting little lives.”
To mark the event, Brake has published the findings of a new survey which suggests that more than half of drivers (52%) admit to driving at 25mph or faster in a 20mph speed limit.
78% of respondents thought traffic travels too fast in their neighbourhood for the safety of children on foot or bike, while 72% underestimated the amount of children killed on roads globally every day – currently 500.
Speed management ‘key’ to saving lives and making cities more ‘liveable’ – WHO
A report from the World Health Organisation (WHO) suggests that excessive or inappropriate speed contributes to one in three road traffic fatalities worldwide.
The report, ‘Managing Speed’, says measures to address speed – including traffic calming features such as roundabouts and speed bumps, and establishing appropriate speed limits – prevent road traffic deaths and injuries, make populations healthier, and cities more sustainable.
The importance of enforcing speed limits is also mentioned in the report, as is emerging in-vehicle safety technologies such as intelligent speed assistance and autonomous emergency braking.
Dr Margaret Chan, WHO director-general, said: “Speed is at the core of the global road traffic injury problem.
“If countries were to address just this key risk, they would soon reap the rewards of safer roads, both in terms of lives saved and increases in walking and cycling, with profound and lasting effects on health.”
One-day summit to showcase award winning speed schemes
A one-day event taking place in London today will review six programmes which have won Prince Michael International Road Safety Awards.
Organised by RoadSafe, the event will in particular look at the way the six schemes were successful in changing the behaviour of road users by encouraging them to slow down, and recommend what more can be done to achieve this goal.
Do you have any activities planned for Global Road Safety Week that we can feature on the newsfeed? Click here to tell us more!
Comment on this story