Vulnerabilities of children and young people
Your primary-aged child:
is still learning about danger and safety. Despite their eagerness to be independent, adults need to supervise them in traffic settings.
As a vulnerable road user, your child is still learning to assess sound direction, vehicle speed, and distance. Their small size makes them less visible to drivers, and they are prone to distractions, often focusing on one thing at a time, making sudden traffic changes challenging for them.
While your child may know the safety rules, applying them consistently can be difficult.
Consider your child's vulnerabilities as a pedestrian, passenger, or cyclist. How can you help them navigate traffic safely?
Understanding danger and safety is a lifelong skill that children develop over time, and you can assist them with it now.
Parents and carers are a child's first teacher and are responsible for modelling safe road user behaviours as children naturally imitate the adult's around them.
It is important to share road safety information with parents and carers so they can reinforce safe behaviours when out and about with their children.
We all need to reinforce and practice:
- using safe travel routes
- modelling how to be a safe road user
- following road rules and the road signs
- creating safer environments
- assisting students to become independent travellers.
As your child transitions into secondary school,
they still need to be reminded about these safe practices as they are still vulnerable in the traffic environment for different reasons.
Think about your child and their vulnerabilities?
