Image: Warwickshire County Council
Kent County Council is adopting a programme which teaches school children road safety skills appropriate for their age group.
The ‘Road Safety Club’ – developed by Warwickshire County Council – aims to raise awareness of road safety among pupils and encourages teachers, parents and carers to be responsible for setting a good example.
Kent’s road safety team first came across the club during one of the ‘Pick my brains’ sessions at the 2017 National Road Safety Conference – and will roll out the scheme when the new school year begins in September 2018.
The Road Safety Club provides the opportunity for every child in Warwickshire to learn ‘fundamental’ road safety skills. Behavioural change techniques and co-operative learning are the ‘cornerstones’ to delivering the club from Reception through to Year 6.
Sessions are broken down into bitesize messages which come together to form a simple ‘Road Safety Code.’ The club also covers sustainable travel and includes ideas for engaging with parents.
External evaluation of the programme shows it has a ‘significant effect’ in terms of changing children’s attitudes to road safety.
Vicky Harvey, Kent County Council’s road safety team leader, said: “We are really excited to be working with our colleagues from Warwickshire, and to be able to benefit from what is clearly a well researched, produced and evaluated project.
“This demonstrates a great link between Road Safety GB regional groups and shows that when road safety professionals come together there is huge benefit in sharing best practice and supporting the work of like-minded people.
“We plan to begin rolling out the road safety club from September and can’t thank Warwickshire’s road safety team enough for their support and guidance in getting us to this point.”
Alison Williams, Warwickshire County Council’s senior road safety officer, said: “We designed the programme to be flexible and responsive to the needs of children, schools and local environments – which is why it transfers well and can be adapted for use in other local authorities.
“We have been working hard to develop the club over two years, and are happy to share the model with others and provide peer learning opportunities.”
If common sense were to prevail then I have to assume that all children of a reasonable age are taught some degree of road safety by their parents/guardians or teachers or RSO’s.
That being primarily that any approaching car, speed being irrelevant, is a danger to themselves and to get out of its way or stay on the pavement and let all such dangerous cars and other vehicles pass by then on the road and by doing so staying safe.
Not worth arguing about.
M.Worthington
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Imogen
We have never campaigned for the correct speed limit instead of training children.
What I actually commented was :-
“By all means train children but often those local authorities putting the most responsibility on children for their own protection are the ones endorsing speeds which they know children are not safe in.”
There is plenty of evidence that however much you train children a 30mph environment will always pose risks that mean that they cannot be relied upon to protect themselves.
Road safety is surely not only about training and educating all road users to behave safely and within the law, but also about setting the right laws to maximise that safety and wider benefits to society.
Rod King, Lymm, Cheshire
0
Both Rod and Imogen are right with their respective views on where the responsibility should lie with regard to avoiding vehicle v pedestrian collisions and neither intervention should be at the expense of, or as a substitute for the other – it all helps – however, motorists in their potentially lethal steel structures have ultimate responsibility and must therefore never assume that the child hovering near the kerb up ahead is fully ‘road safety trained’ and must therefore be prepared to slow and stop in full control and not end-up with a panic stop.
Lower speed limits and road safety education for children should – theoretically – complement each other to reduce collisions, but we know only too well that in practice, road users don’t always do what they’re supposed to and lives get ruined.
Hugh Jones
0
Rod King – Teaching children how to stay safe and encouraging them to take responsibility for their own safety is key in helping them to develop essential road safety skills that will keep them safe for life. Relying on just a speed limit is entirely false education and a completely different subject. This is about empowering children to be safe individuals as they grow and develop into independent travellers.
I also run a road safety education programme for primary schools and have seen a 39% reduction in child casualties on our roads in the three years that the programme has been running.
By all means continue to campaign for your cause, but not at the expense of important and much needed road safety education.
Imogen Leonard, Windsor and Maidenhead
+6
If only someone could train councillors and officers to recognise that even when fully trained children below secondary school age do not have the visual acuity or reasoning to reliably protect themselves in a street environment where speeds of 30mph are endorsed by the highway authority.
By all means train children but often those local authorities putting the most responsibility on children for their own protection are the ones endorsing speeds which they know children are not safe in.
Children need the protection of an adequately enforced 20mph limits across the whole community.
http://www.20splenty.org/duty_of_care_mandates_20mph
Rod King, Lymm, Cheshire
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