Children need special help with road safety
The biggest cause of death and injury to children under the age of 12 is road accidents. Every day thousands of children walk to school, playgrounds or the homes of their friends, often close to, or having to cross, busy roads.
Parents and schools do their best to reduce the risk of accidents by teaching children strong messages such as ‘Stop, look and listen’ and ‘Look left, look right, look left again, before crossing the road’.
But road safety research in Western Australia has shown that it is not enough to teach these messages and then feel confident that your children can make their own way safely.
Tests show that primary school children have poor peripheral vision (seeing what’s coming from the side) and directional hearing (hearing where things are coming from). And they are not good at being able to tell how far away an oncoming vehicle is, or judging its speed. All this means that it is simply not enough to make sure young children thoroughly learn and understand the rules of the road.
According to the research, young children just don’t have the skills and judgement necessary to be safe around traffic. They are not good at responding to a sudden change in traffic conditions and are easily distracted. They usually only think of one thing at a time and tend to take the most direct route to get to things.
The important message from this research is that adult supervision is necessary when children are near traffic, and critically important when they have to cross the road.
Last Reviewed: 26 February 2002
