Pedestrian safety
In partnership with VicRoads through a VicRoads Community Road Safety Grant, Council is delivering a road safety campaign to educate residents about the fundamentals of road safety and their importance in keeping pedestrians safe.
Fundamental aspects of road safety and crossing roads safely are ‘stopping’, ‘looking’, ‘listening’ and ‘thinking’. This campaign is supported by Council’s Road Safety Strategy and Action Plan 2021-2030, a document that outlines Council’s commitment to managing and enhancing road safety for the entire community.
Click on the links below to download your copy of the brochure, poster or presentation to learn more about road safety and safely crossing the road.
Walking to school myth busters
All parents want their children to arrive at school safely and on time and most believe the best way is to drive them right to the school gate. This instead creates hazards for children, as cars travel the street outside the school looking for parking, moving in and out of parking spaces. Just three decades ago, 70 per cent of children walked or rode to school – now only 30 per cent do.
Many parents have practical reasons for wanting to drive their children to school. We need to look at other reasons and challenge some of these walking to school myths.
Myth one: It's safer if I drive my children to school
It’s not! The greater the number of cars driving past the school, stopping to look for a park, reversing into and out of bays, doing u-turns etc, the less safe the school perimeters. In Victoria 65 per cent of pedestrian accidents involving children occur before and after school while they and others are being picked up and dropped off by parents.
Studies show that more pedestrians on the streets make drivers slow down, and so kids walking to school helps to reduce the number and speed of cars.
Myth two: I save time driving my children to and from school
By the time you’ve stopped at lights and signs, driven through 40km/h zones, gone around the block looking for a park…your child could have walked to school, and had a far nicer time than in the back seat of the car! The time taken for short car trips increases as more children are driven everywhere and traffic becomes worse.
The time spent looking for and sitting in a car park could instead be spent walking your child home: “I sit there for twenty-five minutes out the front, because if you don’t you miss out on parking spot”.
Myth three: It's too far for my child to walk to school
Do you know how far you live from school? Take a look on a map and work out the distance. Younger primary school children can walk 250m in five minutes, 500m in ten minutes (the time it takes to get kids in the car and drive them) 750m in 15 minutes and 1km in 20 minutes, and some will happily walk 1.5km in 30 minutes.
If you live further than 1.5km, or if you are on the way to work how about just driving part of the way then walking with your young children to the school? Older children could join a group of friends at a planned meeting place. Walk to school along our Active Paths routes.
Myth (part truth) four: My child has no road sense
Children do not ‘get’ road sense automatically and they can’t get it from the back seat of a car. You can help children develop pedestrian safety skills and road safety skills by giving them plenty of practice around real roads – for example, by walking with children to and from child care or school, around the block or to the local shops.
Your child will learn about pedestrian safety by watching you, so use safe behaviour around cars, roads, footpaths and car parks. A top tip for helping children learn about pedestrian safety and road safety is to describe what you’re doing each time, so your child can understand why it’s important.