to think that cutting the child road safety budget

[Believeitornot]

Is madness? it's a tiny amount

I knew the Tories were cavalier when it came to dangerous driving, but this is sad. I live in a Tory borough who's answer to motorists who speed on residential roads with families and schools nearby was to spend a fortune putting down a more gripped road surface so speeders didn't skid quite so much

Really sad. I live next to a school and people speed and drive carelessly all the time.

We need more things to raise awareness, not fewer.

Mmmn I'm on the fence with this one.

Thing is TV advertising is so PHENOMALLY expensive, I can see how money might be better spent elsewhere to educate children more specifically through increased Road Safety Officers visiting schools, and local campaigns.

Bet they won't be so clever though it'll just be same old, with less result.

I think it's the job of parents to teach about road safety. That is free.

The government can't mop up behind crap parenting for everything.

Have to agree with Ilove it's a parents job to teach road safety/awareness anything extra is a bonus and should in theory be repeating everything that the parents have taught their child.

I wish some parents would stop relying on others to do their job for them

Totally agree Ilovesunflowers and NothingIsAsBadAsItSeems!

It would be one thing if it was talking about cutting the budget for traffic calming measures, but this is specifically targeting the budget for child road safety awareness.

And that's the parents' job.

I think that although it is the parents job to teach road awareness, it IS the governments to ensure that pedestrians are as safe as possible, therefore more crossings, and harsher penalties for the knobheads that speed/drive whilst on the phone etc., and these laws need to be enforced.

If the government are cutting say the TV advertising budget, fine, they can dig out Charlie Says and use that instead of spending thousands on new spangly cool ads. Unfortunately they are cutting police budgets too, so the police can't be there to arrest the wankers who are killing people.

So, YABU and YANBU.

I agree with that aldiwhore.

I don't understand why they can't just bring out the old faithfuls either. Surely the message is the same now as it was in 1981.

Besides, the message from the Green Cross Code Man was always clearer and more explicit than it ever was from those hedgehogs anyway.

Considering hedgehogs are notorious roadkill, they were the wrong characters to lead a safety campiagn, they don't have a great track record.

I've had to tell my children that every car is out to kill them!!

They don't have a great track record do they?

Tory cuts are undermining the efficacy of road safety training in schools.

I think it's the job of parents to teach about road safety. That is free.
The government can't mop up behind crap parenting for everything.
This ^^ completely. I had no idea there even was a child road safety budget. Are parents expected to teach their children nothing now?

If you genuinely want to reduce child casualties back a road safety budget. If you want to save the money for other purposes (corporate tax relief or bankers bonuses for example) then by all means leave it to parents but don't ignore the fact that most deaths occur in the inner cities and that parents do not appear to be effective at reducing those casualties.

Do these actually do any good? My children watch no tv tv at all so would never see these or any adverts. I don't recall any road safety adverts growing up (Australian) and yet have never had an issues at all with road safety, both my parents and school put a strong emphasis on road safety. Come to think of it my non-tv watching three year old has already picked up the basics between what I have taught him and the reinforcement at nursery. I think that these adverts may just be a waste of money.

I'm sure when I was at school we had a community police officer come in and tell us about road safety. We also did cycling proficiency - neither of which were available to my dc

We have pedestrian training, scooter training and bike-ability in schools here in Yorkshire.

Given this thread is 4 years old, I'd be interested in knowing if child road injuries have increased since specific tv advertising was stopped.

Whilst casualties had steadily fallen in the 20th Century since 2005 the number of children dying on our roads has risen. The mobile phone accounts for much of this so modern road safety includes driver distraction.