Parents

Road Safety Advice for Parents

Every day, more than 100 children aged from 5 to 15 years old are killed or injured on our roads.

As a parent or carer you can help reduce the risks your child faces on the roads by teaching road safety and making sure you use the right size and correctly fitted child car seat every trip.

With more than 40,000 children being injured or killed on Britain’s roads each year it is essential that children of ALL ages are made aware of the importance of road safety.

The most important thing parents should remember is that children follow your example, whether it is good or bad. A child is never too young to be taught the importance of traffic awareness and the best teachers a child can have is their parent.

Parents can ensure that their children are aware of the need for road safety from an early age and should support their children’s school whenever they carry out Road Safety Initiatives.

What role do Reading Officers’ play?

The Road Safety Team welcome the opportunity to come along to New Parent Evenings/ events to give advice to parents about teaching road safety to their children but also bringing important road safety matters to their attention, for example parking problems outside the school entrance.

They also attend Ante-natal classes through out the year giving advice to expectant mothers about baby/ child seats.

Several times a year FREE Baby/ Child Seat checks are organised for new parents who are concerned about whether their child seat has been correctly fitted. Dates will be posted in this Road Safety area of the Reading Travel Information  website.

Only 40% of child seats are fitted correctly. A child seat that has not been fitted correctly, in the event of a collision, would almost be as safe as having no child seat at all fitted in the car.