“Obey traffic rules, the life saving tools”
In essence, you may be well aware of road safety education and its relevance in ensuring student road safety. The question is how is it possible to educate your kids about road safety- providing a systematic safety lesson, organizing safety games, and accompanying your child when they go outdoors.
Are you wondering what road safety education actually is? Here is what you are seeking for:
Road safety education is an educational program about road safety that is given to both children and young people in schools and educational institutions. This safety education encourages the participation of parents and guardians for the purpose of helping children to be safe in traffic. It helps to inculcate safe behaviour in children and young people. And thus become an efficient passenger, pedestrian, cyclists, etc.
Road safety education becomes more effective when you conduct demonstration classes, which match the level of development of youngsters as a responsible road user.
Why is student road safety education important?
“Better to prevent than lament”
You can see how traffic is increasing day by day. Hence, it is your responsibility to teach your children about road safety rules and regulations right from an early age to protect themselves. Earlier, you needn't have to worry about your child as there was not much traffic. But, now things have changed a lot and the number of vehicles is soaring high.
There are so many interesting ways by which you can teach road safety to your children at home as well as in the classroom. A class taken by a police official can be of great help to your children. This is similar to the classes conducted recently by Delhi traffic police as part of Children's Day celebrations. Computer supported training will be more effective for children.
Don't Miss: 10 Important Road Safety Rules to Teach Your Children
Goals of student road safety education
- Proper understanding of road traffic
- Acquire safety skills to survive in traffic
- Emphasize their duty to protect themselves on the road
- Explain the causes and effects of road crashes
- Create a consideration on other's safety
Objectives of student road safety education
- To discover and identify the traffic situation well
- To judge the visual lead time
- To analyse the information received from different directions
- To organize perception and action
- To make an individual judgement on road traffic situations
Is road Safety education more important than law enforcement?
Though both are different concepts, to students road safety education is more important than law enforcement. Hence, it should be a part of school curriculum for children. Young children are the future of our nation and hence, their protection is undeniably a top concern.
As a parent, you may try to keep your child away from all risks. But, this is not going to work anyway, as they need to be made prepared for the worst. Children and young people are more susceptible to be victims of crashes. This is because of their lack of awareness of essential road safety rules.
When you look deeply, road safety education is a part of law enforcement as law enforcement becomes complete only when citizens follow road safety rules properly.
Relevance of road safety in today's world
A lot of human lives are lost in road related accidents nationwide every year. Road safety is hence important for every student who is planning to drive a vehicle. In 2013, it was reported that 1,37,000 people got killed. It was a record as the death rate caused by accidents is greater than that death caused by wars.
According to the reports, there were 29,989 crashes in the year 2014 itself. These crashes have risen at an alarming rate ever since. If you want to reduce the number of these accidents in the coming years, then it is vital for you to concentrate more on road safety.
To ensure student road safety, they should receive adequate road safety education at the right age in schools and other educational institutions.
WHO and its Global Status Report on road safety 2015
On the basis of information from 180 countries, World Health Organization (WHO) found that about 1.25 million accidental deaths occurred each year. And the greatest number of accidents is reported from low income countries.
Based on the report, in the last 3 years, about 17 countries are reported to have taken strict action against drink driving, child restraints, seat belt, motorcycle helmets, etc. and yet there was no change in the accident death rates. A target has been decided by the members, that is, halving the total number of road accident related deaths and injuries by 2020.
Road safety education in schools
“Speed thrills but kills”
Road safety education is a continuous process, and it is better for you to begin teaching your children about road safety from a young age so that it become inherent in their nature, attitude and ultimately becomes a habit as they grow up.
Before teaching road safety to your students, you should check whether any student has any previous experience on road accidents or injuries. If there is, it will be better for you to have a discussion with their parents or guardians to know whether their child should be excluded from the lesson or not.
Your child should be aware of the dangers awaiting them in the traffic environment and take appropriate safety measures as an efficient road user. This is possible only when you give proper road safety education to them.
Must Read:
10 Important Points on Student Road Safety and Suggestion for Improvements
Key contents of road safety education
There are certain contents that cannot be excluded from the road safety lessons. And such contents are following:
Road safety ABC
It will be better if you include road safety ABC in your lessons. Are you wondering about road safety ABC. Don't worry, here is what you are looking for:
A for awareness (causes and consequences of traffic)
B for behaviour (what are the things you should do to make you safe on the road)
C for choice and campaigning (how will you take proper choice and persuade others to
make choices too)
The Green Cross Code
Want to know more about the Green Cross Code? Here is what you are seeking for:
1. Identify a safe place to cross the road
2. Stop and observe your surroundings before getting into the kerb
3. Look and listen the road traffic carefully
4. Have patience and let the traffic clear out
5. Ensure that the road is clear, go straight across the road, and never run or panic on the road
Road safety for primary school students
Primary school kids are one of the most defenseless road users. What can you do for them? You can help them by developing their skills, demeanor, and conduct for being safe as a passenger, pedestrian and cyclists. They should be given proper supervision for identifying traffic related dangers and establishing safe strategies when they are on the street without any supervision.
Safe road use behavior should be taught and constantly reinforced until the students understand it thoroughly and practice it properly.
When you give road safety education to primary school students, it should:
- Emphasize essential road safety messages
- Include road safety content in the school syllabus
- Be taught regularly at each stage by both parents and teachers
- Consider local road safety issues
- Never scare your child with frightful consequences
Road safety for secondary school students
Road safety education is edifying, forward-looking and closely linked with development stage of each child. The most efficacious road safety education is created by a good partnership between teachers, road safety officials and parents, each corroborating the others.
As your child moves to upper classes (secondary school), the importance of road safety also gets increased. Most of the secondary school students go to school all by themselves. Sometimes, there will be extracurricular activities in addition to their normal school hours. Also, there is a chance for outing planned with friends, or a trip of their own.
By analysing their behavior, you will be able to know the risk of accidents on secondary school students are greater than that of primary school students. Teenagers are one of the substantial group of road users as pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists and newly licensed drivers. Their overconfidence and indifference to the rules will lead them to serious trouble.
As you analyse the annual survey report of accidental deaths, you can see that most of the victims are young people. Hence, parents, teachers and other road safety professionals should together make an effort to make them understand about the dangers awaiting them on the road and oversee the risks they confront as road users.
What can you do as a teacher to enhance road safety education in students?
Select the most suitable and relevant resources for improving the road safety skills of your students. This can be done only by you as you are the only person who knows the abilities of each student. You can offer them adequate support to augment their safety behaviours and thus ensure student road safety.
What should you do as a secondary school student to improve your safety skills?
You can take part in a range of activities that help you to understand and mold your road safety habits. And overcome certain safety risks that can harm you. Also, you can make use of resources provided by your concerned teacher.
What should you do as a parent of a secondary student?
You should interact with your child about road safety education and reinforce certain safety messages to make your child safe. As a parent, you can easily persuade them to be a responsible road user.
Road safety campaigns and its effects
Road safety campaigns are useful as it helps to influence behaviours and attitudes of people. But at the same time, WHO also mentions that there is not much reduction in road accidents even after organising campaigns.
When you organize road safety campaigns, there should be involvement of government institutions, non-governmental institutions, non governmental organizations, and mass media. Their support and involvement can make the campaigns successful and effective.
The safety campaigns will be effective if you include lectures and interaction, films on road safety, competitions such as painting competition, quiz competitions, debate competitions etc. on road safety. When you include all these activities, safety campaigns becomes more lively, entertaining, and interesting for students.
Road safety campaigns are far more effective than commercial marketing campaigns. It is different from other campaigns since it influences behaviour rather than encouraging the purchase of a new product or switching to other brands. Today, numerous schools and colleges have started to organize campaigns for ensuring student road safety.
Road Safety Education Program
Purpose of road safety education- best opportunity to manage behaviour change of young people and decrease the number of road accidents among youngsters and children
A road safety education program is a learning program on road safety, which is organized for all citizens of the nation. Every driving school organizes theoretical and practical training for young drivers to enrich them with road safety measures. It also helps to identify the factors that increase the risk of accidents. Hence, you will be able to create a new generation of drivers with a good amount of knowledge on road safety via this program.
The road safety education program aims to:
- Create a safe, interdependent and culpable driver
- Manage a vehicle effectively
- Share the road efficiently
- Use the road responsibly
- Apply various driving strategies
- Train the drivers to obey road signs and traffic signals, manage the vehicle in times of emergencies, take an important decision to ensure road safety, etc.
Road safety education limited
It is a non-profit organisation that transfers you highly efficient and proof based road education programs. The main aim of this organisation is to reduce road related accidents of young people. The Road Safety Education (RSE) Foundation was constituted to fulfil the aims of Road Safety Education Ltd.
Earlier, it was named as Rotary Youth Driver Awareness (RYDA) and Rotary Youth Driver Awareness Foundation in both Australia and New Zealand. It was in 2012 that the name changed to Road Safety Education Ltd and Road Safety Education Foundation.
Primarily, the name was changed to reflect the mission of the aforesaid organisation to reduce the sufferings and deaths of young drivers.
Student road safety awareness
Road safety is an engaging subject, which involves both children and youngsters. Most of the young people die because of road related crashes. This is because they are careless and unconcerned about road safety rules. Another important reason behind it is the lack of road safety awareness among your kids.
When you give safety awareness, they will be able to understand the basic concepts of road safety and essential safety rules. It is better to include practical experiences and campaigning while taking awareness classes. This will make your class lively, effective, and successful.
You can make the class engaging by including various activities on road safety. Here are certain activities by which you can present before your students to enrich them with road safety:
- Conducting a seat belt experiment
Introduce two toy cars before the student crowd: one with the belted teddy bear and the other with an unbelted teddy bear. You can carry out this experiment with slopes and obstacles to reconstruct Indian roads. Through this experiment, you can show them how a belted teddy bear survives without falling and getting hurt.
- Experiment with shine torches
You will be able to create a dark environment by closing all the classroom windows and if needed, you can make use of blinds to create more darkness. Then shine torches on student's high visibility vests (brightly coloured vests). And each student will become visible with the help of those bright lights.
And this experiment is a proof showing your kid that they can be made visible before drivers by wearing bright coloured clothes. When they are shown by example, they will certainly understand its significance and be encouraged to do that for the better.
- Compose a Road Safety Song
Songs are an excellent way by which you can persuade students to follow safety rules. It will be interesting if you compose a road safety song for your students. Words like stop, go, pavement, hold hands, etc. can be used to make them realistic. Students will not only get entertained by this song, but also learn essential things about road safety by reciting the song along with their pals.
- Listen to noises and match the pictures
You can allow your student to listen to various noises on the road and identify it. It can be the noise of the ambulance, car, etc. and you can give the students an opportunity to match the sound with the pictures they hold. This provides an important lesson to them, that is, listen to the noises on the road and thus, be vigilant about the ongoing traffic.
- Red light, Green light
This is a kind of game that arouse interest in your students. A student should be chosen as a traffic light and he or she stands in front of the class. Mark a line on the floor, so that the student should cross the line to reach the traffic light. When the traffic light says green, every student should cross the road and when it says red, all the students should turn around.
If anyone is seen moving when the traffic light says red, that particular student should go to back to the classroom and start the game once again. And the student who reaches the traffic light first, become the next traffic light.
A lot of things can be taught through this activity. Your students will be able to gain adequate knowledge about different traffic lights and its importance, such as 'red to stop' and 'green to move'.
- Lesson on traffic
Take a lesson on 'what is meant by traffic'. After this lesson, your students will be able to describe what traffic and vehicles are, identify vehicles based on its size, and recognize pictures of traffic. You can also ask them to name various traffic signs and what it signifies.
All the above activities make your awareness program appealing and successful. Road safety awareness helps to develop your student's existing knowledge on road safety and protect them from road related dangers.
Rewards for student safety
It will be a great idea, if you reward those students who obey road safety rules flawlessly. This will encourage your students to follow rules and execute it at the right time. A notable example is the student road safety awards organized by Paul Kerr. The main aim of this initiative is to give student safety awards and attribute road safety awareness among youngsters.
Paul Kerr organized this initiative in memory of his son, Jon Paul. Jon died at the age of 17, which is driven by an 18 year old driver who got license just two weeks before. The scheme was introduced for motivating the children aged between 11 and 18 to create an exclusive project on improving road safety awareness.
The most innovative project will be given awards sponsored by Peugeot (French car manufacturing company) along with the support of Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA). This serves a good model for enhancing road safety education among your kids and also, you can organize activities that will encourage students to expose their road safety skills and behaviours.
Roads are something that needs to be shared with everyone. Your behaviour or attitudes as a pedestrian, cyclist or driver should be administered with a sense of care and respect towards your fellow road users.
Students are the ones who violate rules more than anyone. One of the prime thing that you should teach them is to never consider a road as a playground. Your responsibility is to give your kid road safety education at the right age, which help them to ensure their own safety.
“Drive carefully to live joyfully”