This paper summarises the background of the Children's Traffic Club (CTC) concept, and reports on the introduction of a free traffic club in Scotland. The concept comes from Scandinavia, where pre-school clubs, introduced in the late 1960s and early 1970s, successfully reduced child casualties. In 1981, the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) developed teaching materials for a UK CTC, which were tested and developed in the London Boroughs during the 1980s. A pilot CTC was launched in the east of England. Its evaluation was positive, and indicated improved road-user behaviour by CTC members. In its current form, a CTC aims to: (1) reduce casualty rates for 3-to-5-year-olds; (2) influence the long-term behaviour of its members; (3) raise awareness of road safety issues; and (4) benefit other members of the children's families. Each CTC distributes to parents and carers five booklets with safety messages over two years. The paper's latter part describes experience with the Children's Traffic Club in Scotland (CTCS), and discusses its operation, materials, publicity, monitoring, evaluation, and possible future developments. The evaluation was commissioned in 1995 and its final report is due in September 1998. It aims to measure the effects of the CTCS on attitudes and behaviour of its members and their parents, and its effectiveness.
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