Road Side Safety for School Children

Introduction to teaching road safety and lesson ideas.

Road safety is a great subject in which to engage children and young people. If approached in the right way, students often enjoy and get a lot from studying and campaigning for road safety because it is an issue they can understand and that affects them. It’s vitally important to help shape children and young people’s understanding of and attitudes towards road safety, to help give them the best chance of keeping safe while they’re young and as they get older. Road crashes are the biggest killer of young people worldwide.

A, B, C of Road Safety

A is for awareness (traffic is dangerous and can hurt people)

B is for Behaviour (things you should do to stay safer)

C is for choice and campaigning (how to make safer choices and to help others make these choices too)

  • Every death or serious injury of a child on roads is devastating for the family, the wider community, and the child’s pre-school, school or college – and everyone is preventable. No child should lose their life or suffer a horrendous injury on roads.

  • Poor road safety not only means children are in danger of being hurt or killed, it also often affects their health and wellbeing. In many countries, children (especially from wealthier families) are increasingly being driven to school, and are less likely to regularly walk and cycle, contributing to inactivity, obesity and affecting social development. If streets are unsafe, parents are often less willing to let their children walk or cycle.

  • Educators can play a vital role in protecting children and stopping devastating casualties by teaching life-saving messages to students, and promoting road safety more widely such as to parents and drivers in the local area.

  • Schools and colleges can lead the way in making local roads safer, especially enabling children and families to walk and cycle safely. You are at the heart of a community and therefore well placed to work with authorities to help achieve improvements to local roads to make them safer for children and adults, such as through paths, crossings, lower speed limits and better law enforcement.

  • Road safety can help you meet teaching requirements and demonstrate to people in the area that you are a school that cares about students’ safety and wellbeing.

  • Road safety is not just a subject for younger children. The older children get, the more at risk they become, as they gain independence. In many countries, crashes involving young drivers are a big problem, causing a large proportion of road casualties, so improving awareness of the risks of driving and being a passenger is crucial for teenagers too.