Teaching children road safety is important for every parent. In this article we look at our top child road safety tips to share with your kids.

Make it fun

First of all, talk to your kids about road safety in a way that they can understand – and try to make it fun. Keep it simple and age appropriate. Invent a song or a rhyme together about road safety that makes the message easier to remember.

Hold hands when crossing the road

When you’re crossing the road with kids, always hold their hands and ensure they understand that they need to keep themselves safe. Make a big show of looking left and right before crossing to check for cars. Tell them why you need to do this.

Always use traffic lights or pedestrian crossings

If there are traffic lights or a pedestrian crossing nearby, be sure to use it so you model the correct behaviour to your kids when crossing a road. All pedestrians need to keep safe around cars, and children look to you to show them the right way to cross a road.

Drive safely in school zones

During drop-off and pick-up times on school days, special speed zones operate around schools in an effort to improve child road safety. Drivers in these zones need to ensure that their speed doesn’t exceed 40 km/h. Children can be unpredictable and drivers need to keep a special lookout to check that children haven’t darted out onto the road.

Keep your kids safe around driveways

A shocking amount of injuries to children occur in the driveways of their own homes. Always make sure children are not playing in or around your driveway. And always check behind and under your car before starting it and driving away.

Get kids to wear helmets on bikes, scooters and skateboards

Always make sure children are wearing helmets and other protective gear when riding bikes, scooters and skateboards. Adult supervision is important especially when kids are young and learning how to ride their bikes and other wheeled vehicles. Check that the vehicle is age appropriate and the right size for your child.

Buckle them up with child seats

In their early years, children must be seated in your car with the correct restraints. As babies, they must be harnessed in approved rear-facing child car seats. From six months to seven years old, children must be seated in approved rear- or forward-facing child seats. It’s recommended that children ride in booster seats until they are more than 145 cm tall, even if they are over seven years old. Don’t start driving until everyone in the car is buckled up correctly.

Never leave kids alone in a car

Under no circumstances should children be left unattended in a car. There are many reasons why. Cars can heat up quickly and a child left in a locked car can face life-threatening temperatures in a relatively short period of time.

Kids are inquisitive and leaving them alone without supervision in a car invites the danger of them playing with the car’s controls including releasing the handbrake, turning on the ignition, and playing with the cigarette lighter. And then there is every parent’s nightmare of child kidnappers and car thieves. The dangers are real and should not be ignored.

Talk to a car accident lawyer

If you or your family are injured in a car accident, then talk to our friendly team of lawyers who can help you get the compensation you need to rebuild your life. You can contact us here.