It is worth reacquainting yourself with the facts about road safety and protecting your child in the car and as a pedestrian. Three-quarters of people in Britain think that the amount of traffic on the roads is one of the most serious problems in modern Britain (Lex report 1996).

The high risk of death or accidents to children walking or cycling on the road, means that residential streets are being taken away from the community, and belong more and more to the motorist. Some villages have their character affected by motorists speeding through with little regard for the villagers' safety and quality of life.  

The statistics are alarming:

These figures are for adults and children, so children, who are more vulnerable, will be more likely to be killed or injured at these speeds.

Are you concerned about people speeding down your road? Do drivers whiz past your school’s gates? Would you let your child walk or cycle to school if the roads were safer? This is a problem that will only get worse as car usage increases and drivers use more residential back routes to avoid increasing traffic.

A government campaign was launched a while back to highlight the problem of driving at slightly over the speed limit. The figures are alarming, as the graphic television adverts show. If you travel at 35 mph instead of 30 mph it will take you 21 feet longer to stop and you are twice as likely to kill someone. These statistics have led to a call, backed by the Department for Transport, to reduce the speed limit to 20mph in residential areas. (Read ‘Reducing the speed limit to 20 mph in urban areas’ from the British Medical Journal).

There are many things that we can do to protect our children, in and out of the car, and to make the roads safer.

(All figures are from the Department for Transport , RoSPA, and the Slower Speeds Initiative.)

Factors for Drivers to Consider

Car design has an impact on pedestrian safety; for example bull bars fitted at the front of a car do not make the occupants of the car safer, but considerably increase the risk of death or injury to a passenger in a collision. This is true of many features on newer cars - car safety for drivers and passengers seems to be top priority for car manufactures but there is less emphasis on pedestrian safety. Cars are getting larger and heavier, increasing pollution and decreasing visibility for pedestrians and other drivers.

Most road accidents happen in built up areas at school run times. Even if the legal limit for road speed is being obeyed, you can still be prosecuted for driving at this speed if it is considered that the conditions are not safe. This can occur in residential streets with cars parked on either side. It is also true that most drivers occasionally exceed the speed limit even in built up areas.

Always be careful when overtaking buses. In America it is illegal to pass a parked school bus because of the risk of children darting out suddenly. Children cannot be clearly seen in this situation.

Be aware that you should not stop on the zigzag yellow lines outside schools, and be careful to drive slowly and park carefully outside schools. Small children are unpredictable and difficult to see when you are parking.

You should never drive and talk on your mobile ’phone and never drive when you are tired or if you have been drinking heavily the night before.

Make sure that your child is correctly secured in the car.  For information and guidance on this read our article on air bags and car seats.

Keeping Your Child Safe as a Road User

In order to keep your children as safe as possible you should ensure that they learn the green cross code – you can print out a child-friendly version from the Department for Transport (DFT), and read more about the DFT's Child Road Safety Campaign.

Child Pedestrians

Child pedestrians should be brightly dressed with reflective strips after dark. They must know how to cross the road safely and use different types of crossings. One in ten child pedestrian deaths occur at or near zebra crossings.

Teach your child from a young age an extreme respect for roads (the old hammer and soft peach adverts were a powerful and easily reproduced analogy for what happens when a car hits you). A horrifying thought is that if you drop a mini car out of a second floor window it will hit the ground at around 30mph – the legal speed limit for cars driving in residential streets past your child.

For safety advice for different age groups read 'Teaching Your Child Road Safety: For Parents of 1 to 15 Year Olds' from the Department for Transport.

If you want to check that you have taught your child everything they need to know read RoSPA's Road Safety Policy Document: February 2001: Pedestrians.

Child Cyclists

Our road safety record for cyclists is appalling. UK cyclists are ten times more likely to be involved in an accident than those in Denmark.

Child cyclists should have safe, roadworthy bikes with lights, and wear bright clothing. They should know the relevant Highway Code and use hand signals correctly. It is a good idea for children over nine years of age to attend a cycling safety course, preferably one that includes actual road riding, lasts more than a couple of days and strongly reinforces the wearing of safety helmets and light-reflective clothing. Contact your local road safety officer for details of courses in your area. See Road Safety Education in Schools, and Cycling Proficiency.

At present children are not legally allowed to cycle on pavements (although RoSPA is trying to change the law on this) but are allowed on footpaths and bridleways.

Read RoSPA's Road Safety Policy Document: February 2001: Cycling.

Further Information

The DFT has two excellent road safety activity books aimed at children aged eight and up. See Activity Book 1 and Activity Book 2 (you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader tothe file but this is free to download).

You can also access the DFT's Highway Code for young road users.

Try and get your school to join the Safe Routes to Schools organisation.

Tigerchild and Road Safety

At Tigerchild we feel strongly about road safety.

The DFT has given local councils the mandate to reduce speeds to 20 mph in accident blackspots and outside schools. However just putting up signs reducing the speed limit from 30 to 20 mph only reduces the speed that people drive at by 1 mph – from 35 to 34 mph!!!  It costs an estimated £100,000 to put speed bumps in to a road (the only really effective speed calming measure). Did you know that money from speeding fines goes to central government and not to fund or maintain speed-controlling measures?

Bearing in mind that the likelihood of a pedestrian dying after being hit by a car travelling at 20 mph is less than 5%, compared to nearly 90% at 40 mph*, we really believe that parents will want to do something to make the street safer for their children. In other countries, when 20 mph speed limits were introduced, although only 50% of people supported them initially, after they had been running for a few months there was 90% support. Also, journey times in cities are only slightly increased by having lower speed limits in residential streets, as most of the journey time is spent sitting in traffic. It is estimated that average commuting times in Leeds would only increase by three minutes if these measures were introduced. Cutting traffic in residential roads could also reduce pollution and noise. Currently the school run causes 20% of rush hour traffic – we cannot reverse this trend if the streets do not get safer.

We also believe, like RoSPA, that young children should be legally allowed to cycle on the pavement.

It would be good to turn residential areas back into places where children can move around freely and safely. Slower-Speeds is campaigning to make the streets safer and is supported by a number of organisations, including Sustrans (the national cycling network and Safer Routes to School campaign organisers), but there are no parenting organisations lobbying the DFT.  

Some parents even advocate reducing speed limits to as low as 10mph, although the Department for Transport says that speedometers are inaccurate at this speed. If cars go slowly along residential streets, the whole ‘feel’ of the street changes, making it safer and more likely to have a community ethos.

If you have any comments to make, and either support or disagree with our views, please let us know at roadsafety.

The UK Department for Transport's road safety strategy for 2010 has a summary of the government’s ideas for reducing road deaths. We could help to make them law.

(All figures are from the Department for Transport , RoSPA, and the Slower Speeds Initiative).

If you are interested, the following links provide additional relevant information:

T2000 Home Page – an independent organisation with lots of ideas for reducing car use and making streets safer.
Sustrans, who promote walking and cycling, and run the National Cycle Network, and the Safer Routes to School campaign.
Home Zones are making areas in England (and Europe) more pedestrian friendly by drastically altering road layout – read about their vision and the practical problems that they have encountered on their home page, and find out if there is a pilot scheme near you or how to start one.
RoSPA - Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents
The Slower Speeds Initiative, which is campaigning to reduce speeds in areas where there are lots of pedestrians.
Also see Who pays for calming? And CAPT: All About Capt, who organise Child Safety Week.

*Recent DFT figures