Parents urged to get involved in Road Safety Week 2008

10-16 November

Parents are being encouraged to think now about how they can get involved with national Road Safety Week 2008, which runs from 10-16 November. The theme of this year’s week is 'Family Safety - Protect the Ones you Love'

Parents can start planning now how to take part and log on to www.roadsafetyweek.org.uk and find out more.

A child is hurt or killed every 18 minutes on UK roads[1]

Roads can be a danger to children of any age, be it younger children walking to school on their own for the first time, or teenagers learning to drive and getting in cars with their mates. This year’s Road Safety Week encourages parents to talk about road safety with their kids and teach them how to keep themselves safe and look out for their friends.

So what can parents do?

• Why not invite a few of their friends and parents around and make traffic light biscuits? It’s great fun for the kids and you can talk them through safe use of road crossings at the same time.
• Want your kids to be able to cycle to school on their own but don’t feel confident? Does your school provide cycling proficiency lessons? If not, why not suggest them to the head teacher?
• It’s not just kids who lack road confidence – why not see if a local cycling instructor would do a refresher course for parents?
• Teenagers – use it as a chance to sit down and talk about the dangers of driving and also of getting in to cars with young mates who have recently passed their tests.

National Road Safety Week, now in its eleventh year, is co-ordinated by Brake, the road safety charity, and supported by 3M and DHL. The main theme of Road Safety Week 2007 was child pedestrian and cyclist safety. Brake held 12 regional media launches across the UK, urged drivers to slow down around schools and homes and called for measures to help protect children on foot and bikes. The Week received national TV coverage as well as extensive regional coverage.

Parents got involved at Park Mead Primary School, Sussex, by responding to a questionnaire to help write a school travel plan.  Other events included a police liaison officer coming in to give talks to each class about the dangers they face on the road, and the realities of road crashes.

At St. Mary's Junior School, Lanarkshire, the school was helped by local road safety officers who gave parents and carers a variety of road safety leaflets and information outside the school at collection time. 

Brake is an independent, national road safety charity. Brake exists to stop the 9 deaths and 82 serious injuries that happen on UK roads every day and to care for families bereaved and seriously injured in road crashes. Brake produces educational road safety literature, runs community training programmes and runs events including Road Safety Week. Brake’s Forum for fleet professionals, the Fleet Safety Forum, provides up-to-date fleet safety resources to fleet managers. BrakeCare, Brake’s support division, cares for road crash victims through a helpline and other services.

Brake is funded by donations. Registered charity number 1093244.

[1] Road Casualties Great Britain 2006 (Department for Transport 2007)