Children and traffic
Living Streets believes that children who are driven to school do not have the opportunity to develop road awareness and are therefore more vulnerable when they start to walk to school independently at secondary level. We run the Walk to School campaign as we believe there is no substitute for real-life experience. Walking children to school from an early age is the key to their future safety as they perceive the world in a different way to adults and need to be taught how to negotiate traffic. For instance:• they have difficulty judging the speed and distance of vehicles. They cannot distinguish between a large vehicle going slowly and a small vehicle going fast – the larger vehicle seems the most dangerous.
• they have a physical disadvantage in traffic: their peripheral vision is two-thirds that of an adult.
• they have difficulty determining where a sound is coming from. Traffic noises and sirens may confuse them.
• most children under six lack a sense of danger and often mix fantasy with reality. They do not always understand that a vehicle may seriously hurt or kill them if they collide.
• they are often restless and are easily distracted. They tend to focus on the things that interest them at the moment so they have trouble waiting for things such as traffic lights or cars heading in their direction.
• most young children are unable to understand a complex chain of events.
• they often believe that all adults will look out for them. They think that if they can see an adult driving a car toward them, the driver must be able to see them.
• they assume vehicles can stop as quickly as pedestrians can.
