Improving road safety for children and young people
Use this briefing to ensure your local Play Strategy can make a difference to the lives of children and young people by reducing the level of collisions involving motor vehicles, and the fear of such collisions, which is one of the main reasons why children are kept indoors by worried parents.
The results of a MORI survey commissioned by the London Mayor were released on 21 March 2005 showing that 60% of people supported the introduction of a 20mph speed limit on residential streets with just 27% opposed. 85% of people supported the introduction of a 20mph limit outside schools with just 10% opposed. The current maximum speed limit on many London streets is 30mph.
The link between speed and deaths on our roads is clear: London boroughs that have adopted 20mph zones have seen a reduction in deaths and seriously injured casualties by 57%, with serious injuries to children falling by 61% in these areas.
The number of children killed and injured on the roads in the UK has steadily declined for a long time. However, statistics for 2006 suggest there has been a reversal of this trend. Parents who forbid their children to cross roads alone may be preventing them from learning lessons in how to avoid being run over, according to an analysis of official figures.
The proportion of children who are never allowed to cross a road unsupervised has risen each year for the past five years. But the number of child pedestrians being killed is also rising. Department for Transport research found that, in 2006, almost half (49 per cent) of parents with children aged seven to 10 said that they never allowed them to cross the road on their own, compared with 41 per cent in 2002.
Transport for London (TfL) published figures in June 2008 showing that the number of children killed or seriously injured on London's roads has fallen to a record low. The figures confirmed that in 2007, the total number of children killed or seriously injured fell by 16 per cent from 392 to 331. Compared with the mid to late 1990s, there has been a 65 per cent fall in the numbers of children killed or seriously injured. It is the lowest that child casualties have been since records began in 1990, details: link
The new Department for Transport (DfT) Child Road Safety Strategy incorporates a specific action point on creation of safe routes to play areas as well as to schools (Action 16, page 62). The new Manual for Streets updates 30 years of giving car drivers preceedence, to suggest it is now time for people to see their residential streets as places to play, meet friends and hold a street party.
The DfT has put together a new page on their website to bring together all current information about road safety for children. This page links to guidance, resources and activities for individuals and bodies responsible for educating children about road safety.
International research suggests that the countries with the lowest child pedestrian casulties are those where the law makes drivers responsible for the burden of proof that they drove safely in the case of a crash involving a child in a residential area. Could that happen here?
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