Traffic safety for children is a special matter which results in wishes and demands being put forward by parents and organizations to the local authorities to accomplish change of the traffic environment. A study has been made for Lerum, a suburb of Goteborg with 25,000 inhabitants. The purpose is to analyse how much interest is shown by the local authorities in increasing traffic safety for children. Several methods have been applied, namely analysis of reports, interviews with persons dealing with these matters, study of the local press, analysis of accident statistics. The traffic safety committee deals specially with safety problems and has a central role. A third of its cases are to do with children and safety. Half of the cases were generated from the local authorities. The most frequent types of question were the road to school, including problems of crossings, need for separated footpaths and bicycle roads. A special study has been made of the handling of five items. The study shows that many authorities at a local and regional level deal with safety problems. The handling of cases therefore takes a lot of time. The study recommends that (1) various authorities must be more coordinated, (2) a master plan for measures must be set up together with a financial plan, (3) the public obtains better contacts with and information from the politicians and the local authorities. (a) for the covering abstract of the conference, see IRRD abstract no. 218603.
Abstract