Background Parents often possess unrealistic expectation on the ability of school-bound children in crossing roads safely. Little is known about mothers' understanding of such unwise-behaviour plunging them into serious road-traffic/RT-injuries. Here, we report mothers' perception on RT-regulations with certain plausible-factor(s) predisposing reckless-attempts of fatal-RTAs.

Purpose Study perception of such mothers' accompanying school-bound children on RT-regulations/laws; and, examine if mothers' education/knowledge remains plausible-predisposing factor(s) in taking such deadly-attempts of road-crossings.

Methods We conducted this study among 148 mothers accompanying school-bound-pedestrian children crossing busy city-roads adjacent to nine randomly-selected school-fringes in Dhaka city. Two-tier-methodology was used: assessed mothers' knowledge (using structured-questionnaire), quantitatively and determined perception, qualitatively (Focus Group Discussion-FGDs).

Outcome Lower-maternal-education (Lo-Mat-Ed) was associated with running-off roads (p<0.02) and inadequate knowledge on RT-safety-regulations/signals (p<0.01). Lo-Mat-Ed was linked with knowledge-gap/faulty-ideas (concentration on ‘school-bag’ than watching traffic-vehicles), (p<0.01). Inadequate knowledge/Lo-Mat-Ed was related to faulty road-crossing (not using zebra-crossing/over-bridge), (p<0.03). Mothers possessing better-knowledge/higher-Mat-Ed recognised RT-signals more-correctly (p<0.009): cross on red (p<0.005) and never on green lights (p<0.03). Risk-estimate-analysis revealed Lo-Mat-Ed as potential risk factor for risky road-crossing (OD=3.1(1.2–8.2)), knowing RT-laws (OD=2.8(1.3–5.7)), signal-lights (OD=3.2 (1.6–6.5)) and safe road-crossing (OD=2.24(1.10–4.57)), etc. Post-FGD transcript-analysis also revealed gross inadequacy in mothers' perception on RT-rules and safe road-crossing mainly due to Lo-Mat-Education.

Significance/Contribution Parental-education, a primary determinant of health-related-behaviour, requires RT-safety adaptation. Since knowledge alone is not sufficient to institute RT-safety, developing instructive/environment strategies remains imperative, but mother's proficiency on road-safety must be assessed prior to confer responsibility of pedestrian-school-bound-children, as our findings suggest along with imparting intensive-training/education on road-safety.