1. Over the last five years more than 1200 child pedestrians have been killed or injured on New Zealand roads.
2. Nationally, child pedestrian injury is one of the ten most common causes of injury hospitalization.
3. The hours just before and after school (8am – 9am and 3pm – 5pm) are peak injury times for child pedestrians.

Are you aware that risk of death to pedestrians rises from 10% when hit by a car doing 30kph to 70% at 50 kph and 90% at 60kmph!

Competency in a range of primary perceptuo-motor and cognitive skills are needed. Until the age of 10 years children have difficulty assessing vehicle approach time because they can not understand the relationship between duration, velocity and distance.

Crossing the road requires dealing with traffic coming from two different directions. This requires the ability to divide attention, to hold information in memory and to coordinate and then integrate this information.

Children lack the ability to make reasoned decisions in traffic. It’s never too early and children are never too old to be taught about road safety.

Click here for some age-appropriate tips on educating your child about road safety.