Brake believes that everyone has the right to make safe and healthy journeys in their community and that no one should be hurt by roads.
Brake Zebras is for children and their families to find out more about road safety.
Brake Zebras provides free tools, activities and knowledge to support your children as they try to find out more about road safety.
Why Zebras?
1. Brake's mascot Zak the Zebra
For several years, Brake has successfully used a zebra mascot for its community road safety work in the UK. Our mascot Zak the Zebra has attended many events, including community photo calls seeking lower speed limits or crossings, and community fundraising initiatives in aid of Brake. Zak the Zebra has proved a popular and positive mascot, inducing a sense of positivity and community spirit around road safety.
2. Zebra crossings
Zebras are associated with zebra crossings, which are in nearly all parts of the world where there are roads. From Bangladesh to South Africa, from Japan to Bolivia, black and white stripes are associated with the rights of people to move around on foot. While the word zebra is not the same in every nation, it is the same in English, French and Russian, which are three of the six UN languages, and covers many of the peoples of the world. Zebras are used by many road safety campaigns, from Singapore to Bolivia. In Paz, Bolivia, road safety volunteers dress up in zebra suits and help people to cross the road. These volunteers describe the zebras as representing “love, humility and respect”.
3. Children like zebras
Zebras are also interesting animals that appeal to children. The scouting movement has successfully anthropomorphised many animals (cubs, beavers, etc.) to create movements of children. Zebras can be seen in such a light. We are creating a movement of children who are “zebras”; coming together to support global road safety initiatives that focus on the rights of children to walk and cycle in safety and with clean air.