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carers, and all vehicle drivers and riders. There are a number of initiatives under way to address
these issues.
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DfT is working with educational consultants to provide a set of comprehensive road safety
educational resources for children aged 4–16, and is also developing a dissemination package
to encourage local authorities to deliver pedestrian training for younger children, preferably
following the Kerbcraft model. This will teach children the key skills they need to cross roads
safely, through practical roadside training in the real road environment.
Actions to encourage safer driving also help to improve safety for children. These include
legislation, enforcement and publicity about issues such as speed, drink-driving, and mobile
phone and seat belt use.
To help ensure that young people are better prepared before they start learning to drive, the
Driving Standards Agency will be consulting on reforms to the driver testing and training
system, designed to encourage safer driving attitudes and behaviour, rather than focusing
mainly on mechanical driving skills. This should lead to safer roads for all, including children.
A new cycle training scheme, Bikeability, is designed to give children and parents the skills and
confidence to cycle safely and well. Over the next three years £140 million will be invested in
cycling. This will include enabling an extra 500,000 children in Year 6 to have access to
Bikeability Training by 2012, as well as funding for more safe links to school via traffic calmed or
traffic free routes.
As well as addressing the skills and behaviour of road users, the other main way of improving
road safety is to make the street environment safer. The child road safety strategy, the Children’s
Plan and the Staying Safe Action Plan all encourage the wider use of 20mph zones in areas
where children are present. Evidence shows these can reduce the number of child pedestrian
deaths by up to 70 per cent.
Portsmouth City Council
36 Fair Play: A consultation on the play strategy