The Child Development Research Programme was set up in the UK to provide a better understanding of how children learn, develop, and use the skills needed by pedestrians in traffic. It arose from a concern that accident rates for child pedestrians in Great Britain are among the worst in Europe. This paper describes Phase 1 of the programme, whose two parts were: (1) a review and analysis of the aims of road safety education, interpreted within current psychological perspectives on child and social development; and (2) a related programme of fundamental psychological research, informed by the review. Phase 2 will include the development and evaluation of interventions to help children to negotiate traffic as they cross roads. The paper draws from the results of five empirical projects, running from early 1994 to mid-1997. A sixth project, by the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL), was concerned with data management and a research protocol. Together, the projects had several successful results. They illuminated patterns of pedestrian behaviour for children on their own and in groups. They identified the importance of a child's psychological perspective within his/her social context. They drew attention to individual differences between accident rates and risk taking, including relevant attitudes and motives.
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