Child Pedestrian Training
By walking regularly, children can build exercise in to their daily routine to help achieve the recommended 60 minutes of physical activity per day.
Active travel has a wide range of physical, environmental and well-being benefits and walking provides an opportunity to socially interact with family and friends as well as being a valuable road safety experience.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, many children in Wales benefitted from pedestrian training or Kerbcraft at school. Social distancing requirements made practical training of this nature at school impossible; this package has been developed to assist you in equipping your child with pedestrian skills for life.
The key skills to practise are:
Choosing Safe Places to Cross
Helping your child to recognise hazards and identify appropriate crossing places.
Crossing the Road
Enabling your child to practise their crossing skills under supervision.
Crossing Between Parked Cars
Teaching your child how to use a safe strategy for crossing near parked cars, when avoiding them is impossible.
Practise should begin on a quiet road and include discussions on the safest places to cross and the risk from traffic.
Try to include a variety of crossings, junctions and pavements with driveways and entrances where children need to look out for moving vehicles.
Choosing Safe Places to Cross
There may be occasions where parked vehicles or other obstructions can stop you seeing the road clearly. Coming down to a child’s eye view will give you the opportunity to see what they can see.
Have a discussion about what you can or can’t see and work out what you can do about it. If you can’t see both sides of the road, it may be better to move to somewhere you can.
Crossing the Road
Try to cross the road where you can see clearly both ways and remember to:
- Keep your feet behind the kerb
- Look right, left, right again and listen
- If you can’t see or hear any traffic walk straight across the road
- Keep looking and listening all the way across
When crossing the road at a junction, try to position yourself so that you can see clearly down all roads leading to the junction.
Hold hands with young children.
Look right, left, right again and listen as you are crossing.
Crossing Between Parked Cars
When crossing the road, try to find somewhere with a good view along the road. Sometimes this may not be possible and you may need to cross between parked cars.
First find a gap that a vehicle cannot fit into and ensure there is space on the other side so that you can reach the pavement. Always check that the two vehicle you are going to cross between are not about to move.
You can make sure the vehicles are not going to move by carrying out 5 simple checks:
- Check for drivers inside the vehicles
- See if any lights are switched on
- See if any wheels are moving
- Listen for the engine starting
- See if there are any exhaust fumes
If you cannot see past the parked cars, move forward so your feet are in line with the wheels.
Do not stand any further out as it may put you in danger.
Remember, it is really important to see what is coming in both directions.
Safer Crossings
A zebra crossing is identified by black and white marking on the road. Always check that the road is clear in both directions or that any traffic has stopped before crossing.
If you can see vehicles approaching always wait until the traffic has stopped in both directions. Remember that traffic does not have to stop until someone has moved onto the crossing.
Puffin, pelican or toucan crossings are all identified by the use of lights.
Try to cross the road where you can see clearly both ways and remember to:
- Keep your feet behind the kerb
- Press the button and wait for the green man
- Look right, left, right again and listen
- If you can’t see or hear any traffic walk straight across the road
- Keep looking and listening all the way across