Child road deaths up by a fifth in one year

The Department for Transport has today released the main results of Road Casualties Great Britain 2006 showing that child road deaths have increased by a startling 20% since 2005. Child pedestrian deaths have risen by 13% and child cyclist deaths by 55% since 2005. This frightening news comes in the same year that the Government produced its first Child Road Safety Strategy.

Brake is calling urgent action to reverse this year’s rise in casualties including:

Ring-fenced funding for specially-designed 20mph ‘safety zones’ to reduce driver speeds around schools and homes, where our children walk and cycle.

Increased investment in other road engineering measures such as pedestrian crossings and cycle paths.

Compulsory, effective, road safety education for children of all ages.

Increased investment in traffic policing to ensure effective enforcement of child seat laws.

Brake has produced a petition for funding for 20mph zones as part of its ‘Watch out there’s a kid about’ campaign. Visit brake.org.uk and click on the ‘protect our communities’ button to find our more.

Brake’s Road Safety Week 2007 (5-11 November) focuses on the theme of child pedestrian and cyclist safety. Go to roadsafetyweek.org for more information.

Jools Townsend, head of education at Brake, said: “These results should act as a wake-up call to Government. While there has been progress in reducing child road deaths over the past decade, today’s horrifying results show there is no room for complacency. Every child road death is one too many and much more can be done to protect our children on roads: the UK has one of the worst child pedestrian death rates in Western Europe [2]. We should be following the example of Sweden’s ‘Vision Zero’ policy, and aiming to reduce road casualties to none if we are serious about stopping these devastating deaths and injuries among our children.”