Child Road Safety – Tips To Teach Your Kids

The importance of teaching your kids road safety cannot be overstated. For little ones, the roads can be fascinating and dangerous in equal measure. We hope that you find these child road safety tips helpful in preparing your children for stepping out on their own.

Look Both Ways

First and foremost, when you’re discussing child road safety, it always pays to start with the basics. From an early age teach your kids to look right, left and right again before crossing the street. Be sure that you remind kids to keep focused and continue looking until they are safely all the way across the road. The Road Safety Authority have numerous resources to promote safety with kids. Click here to explore the Road Safety Authority’s learning tools. These tools make getting familiar with child road safety staples, like The Safe Cross Code, fun.

Top Tip:

Every child is different. But, developmentally, most kids are unable to judge the speed and distance of oncoming cars until age 10. You should avoid having under 10s navigate crossings unsupervised.

 

Plug Out and Switch On

Road safety questions for children have, in recent years, evolved to reflect changes in the modern world. Now, there are many new concerns parents needn’t have worried about before. You should teach your kids to put phones and other devices down when crossing the street. It is particularly important that you reinforce this message with teenagers. Teens remain the most likely group to be involved in an accident as pedestrians.

Top Tip:

When you are talking about child road safety – it is crucial to practice what you preach. Set a good example by putting your phone aside when walking around cars.

Carseat Essentials

In your own car, Road Safety for kids should be just as paramount as when you are on foot. Your child’s car seats should always initially be fitted by an expert who can show you how to install it correctly. You can explore these videos, courtesy of the Road Safety Authority, to find out more. The RSA ‘Check it Fits’ Service is another campaign that aims to save lives by ensuring that child seats are properly fitted. You can learn more about the free Check it Fits service right here.

Get Talking

You should begin teaching your children to be safe pedestrians from a very young age. A nice walk around your local area can be the perfect opportunity for you to carry out practical safety demonstrations with your child. By doing this, you can get across important child road safety messages in a way your kids can relate to.

When you are walking around the local area with your child – discuss potential hazards as you encounter them. This will allow you to find out what your child considers to be safe and unsafe and can bring into sharper focus what particular safety messages you need to reinforce.

Recognise Dangerous Areas

When it comes to road safety tips for kids, it can be all too easy to focus on dangerous main roads. In fact, some of the most hazardous areas for children are places like housing estates and shopping centres. Tell your children to take extra care when playing in the roads and cul-de-sacs of housing estates. You should warn kids about the hazards of playing in and around driveways.

You should try your best to stay extra vigilant in shopping centre carparks. It’s very easy to get distracted loading shopping into the car and for a child to wander off and place themselves in danger.

Top Tip:

The Road Safety Authority have also launched a number of videos aimed squarely at issues relating to child road safety in and around dangerous areas like driveways and housing estates. Click here to learn more.

Child Road Safety Overview

These are just a selection of easy, readily applicable tips to help keep your child safe on the road. Ultimately, the most important thing to keep in mind when talking about road safety for children is to always lead by example. Take your time crossing at junctions, never talk on the phone when navigating an intersection and, of course, always buckle up when you are in the car.

We hope you found these road safety tips for kids helpful. Subscribe below to the Autoglass® blog for more helpful guides just like this one.