Just over half of accidental deaths to school aged children are due to road accidents, and for teenagers the proportion is nearly three-quarters. The United Kingdom has one of the best overall road safety records in the world and considerable progress has been made on improving our child road safety. In 1996 child road accident deaths had fallen by 52% and serious injuries by 40% compared with the average figures for 1981 to 1985. Child pedestrian deaths were 62% lower despite a 51% increase in traffic. However, there is still room for improvement. The previous administration set a target to reduce child pedestrian deaths from 1.3 to 1.0 per 100,000 children by the year 2000 using a combination of engineering, enforcement and education measures. In 1996 there were 1.1 child pedestrian fatalities per 100,000 children aged 0-14. Work is now in hand to set the new road safety targets for the years beyond the end of the century. This booklet provides a summary of recent research on child road safety education funded by the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions. The Department believes that it is essential to disseminate this research to road safety professionals, other researchers and policy makers to ensure that the key messages are put into practice. Tere is a summary of on-going research at the end of the booklet. For an updated list of publications from the Department, you can check our website on http://www.dft.gov.uk (Author/publisher)
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