Kids must be independent on road safety, says campaign
Children need to take control of their own road safety and not rely on adults, according to a new cross border road safety campaign launched today.
Too many young people were being needlessly killed on the roads because drivers or young pedestrians did not exercise proper care and failed to behave appropriately in the roads, said Northern Ireland's Environment Minister Angela Smith.
Speaking at the Belfast launch she said: “We must raise awareness of the danger young people face on the roads and highlight what they can do to keep themselves safe and, ultimately, alive.”
Central to the campaign, developed by the Department of Environment in Northern Ireland and the National Safety Council in the Republic, is a TV advertisement aimed at capturing the interest of the young.
It has updated the well known old message – Stop. Look. Listen. Live – for a new generation who are much more media and brand conscious than their parents were.
The campaign stresses the need for young people to think for themselves and influence their peers rather than the traditional approach of “adults telling children what to do”.
Eddie Shaw, chairman of the National Safety Council said that since the introduction of a Government road safety strategy in 1998, the number of deaths and injuries among the under 14s had been nearly halved.
Nevertheless during that six years, nearly 5,000 people under 14 had still been killed or injured on the roads of the Republic.
Mr Shaw said if the downward pressure was continued with the aid of the campaign there was a realistic expectation of 2,400 children being alive and uninjured in another six years time.
“This is a worthwhile objective for us all,” he said.
