Pupils at a County Durham school have come together to design posters encouraging safer parking outside the school gates.
Working with the council’s road safety team and police community support officers, the school council and teachers at Tanfield Lea Primary School, in Stanley, have been working on a Safer School Gate Parking Campaign.
Kick started at a teacher and pupil assembly, the campaign aims to highlight the dangers of inappropriate parking and alternative ways to travel to school.
Children from the school council then conducted a traffic survey to check parking positions and vehicle speed outside the gates at home time, when congestion was at its highest.
The campaign culminated in a student competition to design posters stressing the importance of safe parking. Winning designs have been made into outdoor signs to be displayed on the school gates.
A grand reveal of the students’ posters took place in front of children, parents, teachers, police community support officers and representatives from the council’s road safety team.
Mark Temple, acting head teacher of Tanfield Lea Primary School, said: “The children care about safe parking, and we hope that the children’s posters will have a positive impact on the whole community and keep everyone safe.
“Our school council and pupils hope that the messages on our posters will encourage all adults to be vigilant to ensure parking takes place safely away from hazardous areas and that those driving to our school help to create a safer environment for all our children. As we say, ‘be cool, park away from school.'”
Cllr Lyndsey Fox, Durham County Council’s cabinet member for economy and partnership, said: “Road safety and responsible parking around schools is important to us, and this campaign is a great way of highlighting the issue to parents and children. We’re happy to see schools in our county taking road safety seriously.
“We encourage parents and carers to think of alternative ways to do the school run so we can reduce demand and the risk of unsafe and irresponsible parking outside the school gates.”
The term “safer” is commonly used without any measure of the level of safety pre and post intervention.
Which is a safer state for pedestrians, gridlock, stop start traffic, very low traffic speeds or a clearway with higher traffic speeds?
Why is the solution to road safety outside schools nearly always to increase trafficcfliw speeds?
Chris, Bristol
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