Sandeep Gill, Senior Associate in our Serious Injuries Team, recently visited two primary schools in South Wales to raise awareness of Road Safety Week. Here he tells us what he got up to…
As part of Road Safety Awareness Week this year I was privileged to attend two schools in Cardiff and Newport to raise awareness of Road Safety Awareness Week, judge poster entries and present prizes to the competition winners.
Road Safety Week was founded by Brake, a road safety charity working with communities and organisations across the UK to stop the tragedy of road deaths and injuries, make streets and communities safer for everyone, and support people bereaved and seriously injured on our roads.
The focus of the Road Safety Week this year was “let’s talk about speed”.
This year I attended Llanishen Fach Primary in Cardiff and Clytha Primary in Newport.
The children at both schools were attentive and engaged in the assembly. I was impressed with their awareness of road safety and their confidence when taking part in the interactive parts of the presentation.
In advance of the assembly the children were provided with a Road Safety Awareness pack which included a poster of a car to complete for me to judge on the day. I then had the difficult task of choosing the winning entries and handing out the prizes, kindly donated by the Brain Injury Group.
The pupils at Clytha Primary School chose to think outside the box and design their own posters as opposed to complete the one provided in the pack. I was impressed by all of the entries. There were some brilliant phrases such as “Look left and right and you will be alright”, “keep your eyes on the road and not your phone”, “no seatbelt, no trip” and “Stop, Look, Listen.”
Sadly every 24 seconds, someone somewhere in the world is killed on a road. Approximately 1.3 million people die on the world’s roads every year. Road traffic collisions are the leading cause of death for young people aged 5-29, meaning that the children that I was speaking with are sadly more likely to be impacted by the above statistics as they, their siblings and possibly their parents would fall within this age range. I think it is this statistic that hits hardest. We must all teach young people of the importance of road safety and those of us who drive vehicles must be mindful of the consequences of driving too fast and make a conscious effort to slow down.
Hugh James is dedicated to supporting clients and their families whose lives have been impacted by road traffic collisions resulting in serious injuries and fatalities. We are a member of Brake’s legal panel and have signed up to Brake’s Solicitor Code of Conduct for supporting road crash victims and work closely with the charity to provide specialist advice and support to users of its National Road Victim Service, which helps more than 1,000 victims a year.
