Lesson 1: introducing key road safety concepts

In small groups, or as a whole class, talk about some of the following points. Use the posters in your action pack to support your discussions.

Download the posters here

Road safety key words

Introduce the following road safety key words: hold hands, road, car, stop, look, listen, kerb, pavement, danger, traffic, crossing.

We want… Footpaths

• We need to move our bodies to be healthy. Walking is a good way to move to stay healthy.
• Walking is a fun way to hang out with friends and family too.
• Talk about the danger of traffic and explain that a car is hard and heavy and can hurt them.
• Explain that sadly many people have been hit by traffic while they've been walking and have been hurt or have died. Say that this is why it’s important to have separate paths for people to walk away from traffic and this is why we need footpaths (pavements).
• Talk about why it’s important to hold hands with a grown up and to stay away from the kerb.

We want… Cycle paths

• Like walking, cycling is a good way to move our bodies to stay healthy.
• Cycling is a fun way to hang out with friends and family too.
• Talk about the danger of traffic, and explain that a car is hard and heavy and can hurt them.
• Explain that sadly many people on bicycles have been hit by traffic and have been hurt or have died and this is why it’s important to have separate paths for people to cycle away from traffic.
• Talk about why it’s important to always wear a cycle helmet (to protect your head if you have a bump).
• If more people walked and wheeled, there would be fewer cars on the roads and less pollution.
• Children under the age of 10 should always cycle with a grown up and should not cycle on roads.

We want… Safe places to cross

• See how many different types of crossing places your children can think of. (See activity 1 for more information about crossing places.)
• Talk about why it’s important to cross the road at safe places such as zebra crossings or where there is a school crossing patrol (lollipop person).
• Explain that when it comes to road safety, red means stop. Talk about traffic lights and pelican crossings and explain that the red crossing signal means that it is not safe to cross the road and they must stop and wait.
• Talk about why young children should always hold hands with a grown up to cross the road and why we should never cross the road between parked cars.

We want… Slow traffic

• When traffic is fast, it’s difficult to see it coming… and difficult to get out of its way.
• The faster a car is travelling, the longer it takes to stop.
• If a vehicle crashes into people walking or wheeling, it hits them very hard, or runs them over and squashes them.
• Sometimes their legs or arms are hurt and don’t work anymore. Sometimes people die. This can sometimes happen if their brain or heart has been badly hurt. If a car hits another car, it can hurt the people inside the cars.
• Fast traffic is noisy and can make it difficult for people to hear each other.

We want… Clean traffic

• All vehicles have engines and most engines use a special type of oil to make them go.
• After making the engine go, the oil turns into a smelly smoke that you can sometimes see coming out of a pipe at the back of the vehicle. This is called the exhaust pipe.
• The smoke that comes out of the back of vehicles has gases and sooty bits in it.
• Traffic smoke is bad for our health. Smoke that comes out of vehicles is bad for us to breathe and can make us ill. It smells horrid too.
• Most cars on our roads still use petrol or diesel but some new vehicles are powered in different ways, for example using electricity. Electric vehicles are quiet and clean.

Questions

Ask your children to answer some of the following questions:

1. How does fast traffic make you feel?
2. Have you seen traffic travelling too fast near where you live/near our school?
3. How would slower traffic near our school make you feel?
4. How do you normally travel to school?
5. Where do you cross the road?
6. What do you think we need in our community/near our school to encourage more people to walk and wheel?

Activities

Use the colouring sheets and activity sheets in class to reinforce their learning and continue talking about road safety.

You can find these in the Brake's Kids Walk action pack.