Every day, nine young children are killed or injured on roads in Britain

• More than 3,400 children aged 7 or under were killed or injured on roads in Britain in 2022 – equivalent to nine young children being killed or injured every day.
• Brake, the road safety charity, is hosting Beep Beep! Day – a national event to help young children and their carers learn about being safe near roads.
• 4,000 schools, nurseries and childminders representing more than 200,000 children are taking part in a Beep Beep! Day today, Wednesday 24 April 2024.
• Everyone who has signed up has received free teaching resources designed to help 2–7-year-olds learn about being safe near roads.
• All resources feature Aardman’s beloved Timmy Time characters.

To coincide with this year’s Beep Beep! Day, Brake has highlighted the true extent of child casualties on the nation's roads (see Table 1).

Latest official figures show that 3,402 children aged 7 and under were killed or injured on roads in Britain in 2022 – that includes 20 children who died and 552 who suffered serious injuries. Road death and road harm has a devastating impact on families, schools and communities, yet these figures show that, on average, nine young children are being harmed on our roads every single day [1].

The data also shows that in 2022, 1,943 children aged 0–7 were killed or injured while travelling by car, 1,157 while walking and 110 while cycling [2].

Beep Beep! Days focus on three simple things to help young children be safer near roads – holding hands with a grown up when walking, crossing roads at safe places and always using a child seat when travelling by car. They also send an important reminder to everyone to use roads safely to protect all road users, but especially young children who are so vulnerable on roads.

Brake recently polled more than 120 parents and carers of children aged 7 or under to understand behaviours and concerns they may have about their children’s journeys. When asked about how their children travel to school on a typical day, more than two-thirds (69%) said they walk, wheel or scoot, while less than one-third (28%) said they mainly travel by car. (The rest chose other modes of transport.) It’s worrying to see that almost half (46%) of parents polled don’t always hold their child’s hand when walking near roads or crossing roads, and 10% said that for short journeys they might let their child travel in a car without using a child seat. When asked what factors would encourage them to walk or cycle more with their children, a quarter (24%) said safe pavements, footpaths and crossing places. Parents also told us they needed slower traffic to make roads safer in their local community.

Brake has run Beep Beep! Days for 20 years, and the charity was delighted to see demand for participation soar this year, reaching double the number of children who participated in 2023. We know that all childcare providers, schools and families share concern for the risk to children’s lives on our roads, and Beep Beep! Day is a great way to help them tackle this issue.

Everyone who signs up to take part in a Beep Beep! Day receives an action pack of teaching resources that includes activities to help children learn about road safety, plus important messages to send home to parents and carers, all illustrated with characters from Aardman’s popular children’s TV programme Timmy Time. This year, Brake was able to fund and dispatch 1,650 printed packs to schools, nurseries and childminders all over the UK, with further free resources available to anyone who signs up at www.brake.org.uk/beep.