The importance of road safety for children

23 December 2020

As traffic levels rise, pedestrians are increasingly at risk from road accidents. The Department for Transport’s “Reported road casualties Great Britain annual report: 2019” showed that there were 470 pedestrian fatalities in 2019, which accounted for 27% of all road accidents resulting in a fatality that year. This figure is a 3% rise from the year before, 2018. We at Marshall Minibus Leasing are passionate about road safety and trust that you find this information useful.

The report also showed that there were 1,640 pedestrian casualties in 2019 – putting pedestrians in to the ‘vulnerable’ category of road users. This is compared with just 195 car driver casualties over the same period.

Statistics from Local Government Inform (LG Inform) show that there were around 1,883 road deaths and serious injuries in children aged 0-15 between 2016-2018, throughout England. A figure that has consistently risen since 2013.

With this in mind, teaching road safety should be a top priority for educators, parents and guardians. The UK government’s road safety campaign THINK! has compiled useful educational resources for teaching children about road safety. These resources are aimed at professional educators but are also available for the public to download.

The programmes are set up for different age groups: 3-6 years, 7-12 years and 13-16 years. Included are lesson plans, which cover specific topics with take home documents for children to complete by hand. THINK! has also created interactive road safety educational games for children to play on their website.

Road safety can be a difficult topic to broach with children, particularly where the child has been affected by a road incident in the past. THINK! offers guidance for educators which explains how to approach the subject, both for teachers and parents.