Road safety. Please help (gently if poss)

[acnebride]

DS is nearly 2 and yesterday he ran into a busy road.

That gap is for how I feel about it, which could be a long long post with a lot of tears.

Now I could do with knowing how other people deal with this. Of course we train him to stop, look listen, to wait for the green man and all that, and of course we don't expect him to do any of this yet. but what else? Do you -

1. keep your children clamped to your side at all times on pavements
2. use reins
3. insist on pushchairs
4. let them run to some extent but smack them if they do run in the road
5. same as 4 but some other 'punishment'?

I just don't know what to do and I feel like a rotten crappy mum who can't even keep her child basically safe. Please help.

How do I convince dh to use reins when it comes to it (he's only 7mo now)? I'm all for them, but dh calls them 'dog leads' and says ds will be far too sensible to ever run off. Quite where he gets that idea from I do not know.

of course I mean ds is only 7mo now - lol.

I used reins with mine until they were old enough for a bit of self-control.