As part of Brake’s road safety day aimed at young children, solicitors from our Manchester office were delighted to attend a nursery and primary school in Manchester to raise awareness of how to keep children safe on the roads.
Beep Beep! Day
“Beep Beep! Day” is campaign designed to teach young children aged between two and seven years old the basics of road safety. This particular campaign is founded by Brake, a road safety charity working with communities and organisations across the UK to stop the tragedy of road deaths and to make streets and communities safer for everyone.
Sadly every day six children are killed or seriously injured on UK roads.
Road traffic collisions are responsible for a large number of deaths in young children.
Road safety statistics
According to the Department for Transport’s annual report, 363 child passengers aged 12 or under were killed or seriously injured in road crashes in 2022. Studies show that using a correctly sized and fitted child seat significantly reduces the risk of a child dying or being seriously injured in a crash.
To help prevent this, even the youngest children need to know about the dangers of road traffic collisions. Only if that danger can be minimised, are families able to walk and cycle safely in their community, which in turn promotes health and wellbeing.
Recent statistics show that effective and comprehensive road safety strategies can reduce the number of people killed or injured on the road, despite increasing traffic. A simple road safety sequence you can do to educate children on road safety is using the pattern ‘stop, look, listen, think’ before crossing roads.
What did we do?
Our solicitors from the Hugh James Manchester office went along to a nursery and primary school in the local area to speak to the children about road safety with a focus on three important topics:
- Holding hands with a grown up when walking near roads;
- Crossing roads at safe places, preferably at a dedicated crossing, with a grown up; and
- Using a child seat when travelling by car.
Our solicitors covered these topics in an interactive way with the pre-school children through activities such as painting posters with the children’s hands to represent why it is important to hold hands with an adult when crossing roads. The children, aged between three and six, also enjoyed a game of musical statues using a traffic light showing red for ‘stop’ and green for ‘go’ to add to the fun.
During the visit at the primary school, our solicitors in the serious injury team discussed ways in which they can keep safe when crossing roads including the importance of ‘Stop, Look, Listen and Think’. The children were able to spot dangers on the roads and identify safe behaviours when crossing the road.
Here are some photos showing what a fun day everyone had:
Both sessions concluded with singing rhymes about road safety with certificates and stickers being handed out to all the children involved.
Debbie Pickles, Nursery Manager at Charlestown Day Nursery in Ashton, Greater Manchester, said:
“As our children here at Charlestown day nursery prepare to transition to school, an important part of their learning is about road safety. Embedding positive habits from an early age is important. Working with young children and helping them understand road safety helps to reinforce their learning as they get older and transition from walking with an adult to crossing roads themselves. Hopefully they can put into practice the safety they learnt at a young age, and it will stay with them throughout life when it is taught in a fun age-appropriate and educational way.”
Chandani Patel, Solicitor in our Serious Injury team in Manchester, said:
“As part of the work I do, I come across these types of instances very frequently, young children are increasingly involved in road crashes, the consequences of which can lead to serious injuries or sometimes fatalities. A common theme which always hits the hardest is how easily these tragic consequences could have been avoided. Having a young child myself, I cannot stress the importance of making sure they are aware of the ways in which they can keep safe when out and about.”
We are a member of Brake’s solicitor directory and, as a charity partner, are dedicated to supporting children and their families whose lives have been turned upside down after a road crash resulting in a serious injury.
