Community News
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Road Safety: What to teach and age-appropriate messages: Part 2 By the age of five, children are ready tolearn, in addition to Part 1: • The Green Cross Code (find a safe place to cross, stop, look, listen, cross with care, looking and listening all the time - see below) • The safest places to cross: underpasses; footbridges; where there is a crossing-patrol (lollipop) person; traffic light crossings; zebra crossings. • In a car, only get out on the pavement side. • In a bus or coach or minibus, wear your seat belt if there is one. When getting off, never cross the road in front or behind the bus. Wait until it has pulled away so you can see in all directions.
The Green Cross Code • Find a safe place to cross • Stop just before you get to the kerb • Look all around for traffic and listen • If traffic is coming, let it pass • When it is safe, go straight across the road - do not run • Go to the THINK! website to read the full Green Cross Code with more detailed advice.
By the age of 9 and upwards, depending on development, children are ready to explore: • The impact of road crashes, injurie and deaths on families. • The responsibilities of drivers to protect other people, especially people who are on foot or bicycle. • The dangers of giving in to peer pressure to take risks.
What to teach to teens Students aged 11-20 may initially think that road safety is for younger children, or boring. But most young people have a lot to say about road safety and won’t find it boring as long as it’s taught well. In fact, effective road safety teaching with these age ranges enables you to explore challenging and worth-while issues, including: • Death and bereavement, and especially the impact of sudden, violent and ‘man-made’ bereavement, such as through road death. Lifechanging injuries (such as paralysis and brain injury) and how this affects people and their families • Taking responsibility for others in the context of good citizenship particularly if driving • Society’s obsession with motor vehicles, the effects this has on
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