South African Road Federation: Prioritising and mitigating road safety at schools
As part of the GRSP-led Botnar Challenge, the South Africa Road Federation (SARF) will carry out a road safety risk assessment in Mogale City to identify schools with the highest road safety risk. A safe school zone road safety assessment will be done at the schools with the highest risk, to identify mitigating measures. These measures will be prioritised and safety measures will then be implemented at the locations with the highest impact, supplemented with road safety education, delivered by the consortium’s private sector partner 3M.
Safer journeys to school
In South Africa a multi-school research project is exploring the potential of speed reduction, infrastructure improvements and road safety education to protect children on their journey to and from school. At this school, in Western Cape, an average of 80 ‘conflict incidents’ (near misses) were recorded each day.
Safe Kids Walk This Way programme
ChildSafe (Safe Kids South Africa) is working with local stakeholders such as the Department of Community Safety and the Department of Transport to implement the Safe Kids Walk This Way programme. Students in schools are exposed to road injuries every day, because 80 % of them are reported to be walking to and from school. Most of these learners reside in informal settlements in which they have to cross busy roads and highways to school. In Johannesburg (Soweto), speeding was identified as one of the leading causes of road injuries and fatalities amongst school children in the area. Students in the Giyani Primary School share a busy road with speeding motorists, especially taxi drivers. Walk This Way partnered with the traffic department in one of its interventions to keep children who walk to school safe by implementing environmental modifications at the school. These included, construction of speed humps, repainting the road, installation of road signs (in leading and around) the schools and conducting road safety educational awareness activities.
For more details on Safe Kids Walk This Way programme click here.
Instagram
Twitter
YouTube