Children to learn life-saving road safety skills

Roadside rescue and recovery service Green Flag has announced it will continue to sponsor a campaign to increase road safety awareness for young children.

This is the fourth consecutive year that Green Flag has linked up with national road safety charity Brake to launch a series of events called Beep Beep! Days.

Every day in the UK a child under the age of five is killed or seriously injured on British roads. Run by Brake and sponsored by Green Flag, Beep Beep! Day is a national initiative which aims to tackle the number of incidents involving children.

Nurseries and playgroups across the UK will be encouraged to run their own Beep Beep! Day event over the summer with the aim of teaching pre-school children aged up to five years road safety behaviour in a fun and engaging way.

Activities designed to engage youngsters include using ride-on toys in the playground against the backdrop of a street scene to learn basic road safety lessons. Children are taught basic skills such as the importance of holding hands and the word stop.

Last year almost 18,000 children took part in a Beep Beep! Day, learning valuable road safety skills and this year Green Flag and Brake hope to increase this figure by over 50%.

Green Flag road safety spokesperson, Philippa Naylor said: "We have the safety of all road users at the heart of our operation and are proud to be involved with Beep Beep! Day for the fourth year running. It is horrifying so many young children are killed and seriously injured every day in the UK and hopefully this initiative will not only help children develop basic skills to stay safe on the roads for the rest of their lives but also encourage drivers everywhere to drive more carefully."

Jools Townsend, head of education at Brake, says: “It is shocking just how many children are being killed or injured on our roads. Teaching basic road safety messages to pre-schoolers helps children develop from a young age an awareness of the dangers on our roads and the simple things that will help keep them safe. If you run a playgroup or nursery please call us to find out about setting up a Beep Beep! Day and how you can help us prevent road death and injury among the most innocent of pedestrians.”

The annual campaign aims to reduce the numbers of children killed and seriously injured on UK roads each year. In 2004, some 27 child pedestrians aged five and under were killed and 381 were seriously injured on Britain’s roads.

Green Flag has also confirmed it will renew its sponsorship for the seventh year running of Road Safety Week which takes part in November.

To register to run a Beep Beep! Day, contact Brake on 01484 559 909 or email: beepbeep@brake.org.uk with your name, the name of your nursery or playgroup, and daytime telephone number.