Road safety education should be part of every child?s learning and development. Lessons are delivered in primary schools but parents and carers should take responsibility for teaching children about the dangers of the road at a much earlier age.

All road users should be able to travel safely and children should be able to walk and cycle in safety. We need the freedom to use the roads for our social development and exercise for general health and fitness.

The Neighbourhood Road Safety Initiative (NRSI) supports new programmes aimed at reducing casualties and specifically tackling the higher incidence in disadvantaged communities. The initiative?s aim is to reduce these casualties and therefore make our environment safer for all.

Road traffic incidents are the leading cause of accidental injury amongst children and young people.

Great Britain?s child pedestrian record is still particularly poor especially compared with other European countries.

All Local Authorities are required to provide road safety education, training and publicity to the community. The role of NRSI Education and Training is to build on this already well-established service by forming links and partnerships with other organisations with similar goals. Through these partnerships we hope to set up more road safety education & training initiatives and to reach the wider community. We are working with partners in ten local authority areas in the North West and have links with others elsewhere. We are planning a number of projects focusing on children and others, looking in particular at pedestrian training for very young children and their parents, the needs of children making the move from Primary to Secondary school, and the particular issues facing teenagers and young adults. We will focus in particular on vulnerable road users, but will also seek to change the attitudes and behaviour of drivers and others.
Reducing the number of accidents on the road involves changing attitudes, this will be done through planned and structured programmes for children and adults.

  Recommended Resource:

http://www.gmroadsafety.co.uk/default.asp?id=1