Children’s Traffic Safety: International Lessons for the UK attempts to identify good practice and innovation from other countries that could improve the traffic safety of children in the UK. The key findings suggest that the UK has adopted good practice in a number of areas but that current practice needs strengthening. A more widespread approach to modifying the environment is required in the UK to improve the safety of children as pedestrians or bicyclists, and barriers to implementation need to be overcome. Clearer guidelines are needed for implementing low speed limits near schools and in identifying these areas as enforcement zones. In the UK there is a steep social gradient in child pedestrian fatalities and at present there is no routine monitoring of the socio-economic status of all road traffic casualties. This data is needed to assess whether inequality targets are being met. In terms of national profile, the UK does not compare favourably with most other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries in terms of income distribution, relative child poverty and the number of children living in one parent families in which the burden of poverty is high. Tackling the causes and effects of these inequalities on safety must continue to be a priority. A greater understanding is needed of how some countries achieve high levels of safety behaviour (such as wearing seat belts or bicycle helmets) compared to others so that these strategies could be used in the UK. More research is required to understand why safety behaviour is not as good among older children compared to younger children. More consideration should be given to the introduction of legislation on driver responsibility for pedestrian accidents. There could be more national support for promoting safe and sustainable travel to school by linking these themes with explicit and clear curriculum topics and by making safe travel to school an aspect of the school inspection process. In terms of monitoring policy, exposurebased targets could be derived for children for different age, gender and road-user groups. This seems especially important given the UK has policy targets for increasing the amount of walking and bicycling by children. In addition, targets could be set for secondary safety behaviour, such as seat belt or bicycle helmet wearing. There are many examples of innovative advocacy and action research approaches involving children that could be readily transferred to the UK. More information about these approaches would be useful. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting