Effects of a traffic club on road safety knowledge and self-reported behaviour of young children and their parents

doi:10.1016/0001-4575(93)90012-L

Accident Analysis & Prevention

Volume 25, Issue 5, October 1993, Pages 609-618

https://doi.org/10.1016/0001-4575(93)90012-L Get rights and content

Abstract

Children in seven counties in eastern England and in six counties in a control region were interviewed just prior to the start of the introduction of a major traffic club scheme. Similar interviews were carried out in the experimental and control regions one year later. The traffic club increased the extent to which parents attempted to teach road safety to their children. In addition, the proportion of children who were said by parents to run ahead was reduced in the experimental compared with the control region after one year of traffic club operation. However, there was no evidence that parents exerted closer supervision of their children's behaviour in the streets. Children from nonmanual socioeconomic backgrounds did considerably better than those from manual backgrounds in terms of knowledge of road safety and were less likely to be left to play or ride bikes unsupervised in the streets. Male children were more knowledgeable about road safety, but were more likely to engage in potentially dangerous behaviour when out than were female children. The results showed that the traffic club scheme in its first year of operation had some impact of the behaviour of its target group but probably did not affect parental supervision. To inform the development of future schemes of this kind, it may be necessary to find out more about why many parents exert limited supervision of very young children in the streets.

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Investigation of intervention methods based on different leading roles in family regarding child road safety education: An experimental study
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Citation Excerpt :
In this context, key for parents to become providers of road safety education for their children is whether they have mastered the corresponding road safety knowledge and skills and understand what they should do and how to do it. Some studies have attempted to compensate for parents' deficiencies in educational content and methods by providing road safety training and distributing safety education materials to parents (West et al., 1993; Thomson et al., 1998). For example, in the “Talking with teens about traffic safety” program, parents received a 20- to 30-minute health education session and were provided a variety of pre-designed educational materials to better guide the exchange of safety knowledge within the family during parent–child interactions (Mirman et al., 2018).
Children are vulnerable to traffic injuries due to their low hazard perception. Previous studies have indicated that both parents and children have potential leading roles in safety education within the family. However, the effects of different leading roles (parents or children) on the hazard perception of children have not yet been revealed, and interactive education with children in the leading roles could also be an important means to enhance children's road safety. To fill this gap, based on constructivism theory and the Feynman learning method, this study proposed two methods of enhancing children's hazard perception based on different leading roles in the family regarding child road safety education and investigated the effectiveness of the above intervention methods. Thirty sets of parents and children participated in this experiment and were divided into three groups. The children received one of three different road safety interventions: a constructivism intervention, a parental guidance intervention or a children’s Feynman learning intervention. Compared with the constructivism intervention, the hazard perception of children who received road safety educations within the family were significantly improved; these children were more sensitive to potential traffic hazard factors and presented better visual search patterns. A comparative analysis showed that the two educational interventions based on different leading roles in the family regarding child road safety education were not identical with respect to effectiveness. The children’s Feynman learning intervention had a more significant effect than the parental guidance intervention. The findings of this study provide insightful information for safety education researchers, governments, educators and families with children.
Gender differences in children's pedestrian behaviors: Developmental effects
2018, Journal of Safety Research
Citation Excerpt :
Observational studies report boys are more likely to run near traffic (Fu & Zou, 2016), to play near traffic (Sullman, Thomas, & Stephens, 2012), and to choose riskier routes across intersections (Barton & Schwebel, 2007b; Barton, Ulrich, & Lyday, 2011). Similarly, in comparing knowledge and behavior, a few studies report that boys have more knowledge about how to engage safely in traffic (Tabibi, Pfeffer, & Sharif, 2012; West, Sammons, & West, 1993) but that girls tend to behave more cautiously on the road, perhaps because they have less knowledge about how to act safely (O'Neal, Plumert, McClure, & Schwebel, 2016; Rosenbloom, Haviv, Peleg, & Nemrodov, 2008). Finally, gender may influence how parents perceive and supervise children in pedestrian settings.
All child pedestrians are vulnerable to road traffic injuries, but there is evidence that boys may be at greater risk than girls, at least among some age groups.
To create effective intervention programs, research on how boys and girls of particular ages behave as pedestrians, and whether there are gender differences that increase risk for particular genders at particular ages, is needed. In this study, 255 boys and 235 girls in grade 1 through 6 from two primary schools in Nantong city, China, were unobtrusively videotaped when walking to school in the morning. Videotapes were reviewed and coded for seven pedestrian safety behaviors, including activities related to crossing streets (walking instead of running/hopping, observing traffic, using the crosswalk instead of walking outside the crosswalk, and keeping close to an accompanying adult) and those related to walking alongside busy streets (walking instead of running/hopping on the sidewalk, not playing on the sidewalk, walking alone instead of walking side-by-side with a partner).
Results revealed that as a whole, boys played on the sidewalk more often than girls (p < 0.01) and crossed with an accompanying adult more than girls (p < 0.05), while girls walked side-by-side with partners more often than boys (p < 0.05). With a few exceptions, boys and girls in the younger grades (1–2) as well as those in the older grades (5–6) behaved fairly similarly as pedestrians, but boys and girls in the middle grades (3–4) presented with several significant gender-based differences. In the middle grades, boys watched traffic more than girls while crossing (p < 0.01); ran, hopped and played on the sidewalk more often than girls (p < 0.05); and walked side-by-side less often with partners than girls (p < 0.05). We also detected different gender-based trends in the development of pedestrian skills. With increasing age, girls performed more safely in pedestrian tasks, but boys did not show a similar developmental trend.
We conclude that boys and girls exhibit different characteristics in their pedestrian behaviors and discuss implications for prevention.
The effect of a road safety educational program for kindergarten children on their parents’ behavior and knowledge
2016, Accident Analysis and Prevention
Citation Excerpt :
One of the ways proven most effective in raising the awareness of road safety and in educating children about road safety is the use of educational programs given by the educational institutions. Intervention programs given to children in kindergartens and schools have been shown in many studies to have a positive effect on children’s behavior, as pedestrians, bike riders, and as car passengers, and thus reduce the likelihood of them being injured (e.g., Ampofo-Boateng and Thomson, 1991; West et al., 1993 ; Thomson et al., 1998; Barton et al., 2007; Ben-Bassat, 2009; SWOV, 2012). These programs also contribute to road safety by serving as a knowledge base for the child’s awareness—a knowledge base that will carry forward through the days after the child becomes a driver (Durkin and Tolmie, 2010).
Road safety education for children is one of the most important means for raising awareness of road safety and for educating children to behave safely as pedestrians, bicycle riders, and vehicle passengers. The current research presents a novel attempt to examine the effect of a unique road safety educational program for kindergarten children on a secondary target group—the parents. The program, named the “Zahav Bagan” program (ZBP), is presented at kindergartens once a week during the entire academic year. It is conducted by senior citizen volunteers and is part of the formal education of the children.
The main purpose of the current study was to compare the behavior, awareness, and knowledge about child road safety, of two groups of parents—those whose children participated in the ZBP group, and those whose children did not; this latter group was the control group. A telephone-based survey was conducted using a sample of 76 ZBP parents and 59 control group parents. Results of the survey showed no effect of ZBP on parents' knowledge of child road safety law and recommendations, but more importantly, the results did show a significant effect in terms of parents’ observance of safe behavior and in their awareness of road safety in everyday life. These results confirm the importance of educational programs on road safety, especially as triggers and reminders to children and to their parents, to act as cautious road users.
Sensation seeking and detection of risky road signals: A developmental perspective
2002, Accident Analysis and Prevention
Citation Excerpt :
More specifically, fundamental knowledge on the acquisition of sex roles (e.g. Maccoby and Jacklin, 1974; Lage, 1991) shows that, gradually, females assimilate and accommodate a preference for safe choices while males develop a preference for risky choices. An empirical support for such a conclusion is brought by West et al. (1993), who found in England that 3.5–4.0 year-old boys exhibited greater knowledge of roadside objects than same-age girls. The former were more likely to run ahead or into the road while the latter showed a greater tendency to adopt safer choices.
The relevance of the construct of sensation seeking, particularly the motivation to seek thrill and adventure and to avoid boredom, to detection of danger on the road, in particular choices made in conditions of road dilemmas (e.g. road-crossing and amber-light), was examined. 412 participants, males and females, from three age groups—7, 13 and 22—completed Zuckerman's test of sensation seeking and were exposed to the following experiments: Virtual driving, road crossing and go-carting. In each experiment, participants were exposed individually to a series of road dilemmas, constructed according to the paradigm of signal detection. In each dilemma, a dichotomous choice was made: To do or not to do. Age- and gender-dependent responses and connections were obtained. Most noticeable is a risky shift in males' detection responses and an inverse trend in females.
Child pedestrian injury prevention project: Student results
2000, Preventive Medicine
Background. Few comprehensive pedestrian safety interventions for primary-school-age children have been developed and evaluated. This paper reports the impact of the 3-year (1995–1997) Child Pedestrian In jury Prevention Project (CPIPP) on a cohort of 1603 children followed from age 6 to 9 years. This multicomponent project comprised an educational intervention for students, their parents and teachers, and the local community, as well as several environmental interventions. The primary aim of CPIPP was to improve children's road-related behavior and to enhance the safety of their road environment.
Methods. Three communities were assigned to the treatment conditions: (1) high—education, community, and environmental interventions; (2) moderate—education intervention only; and (3) comparison (usual road safety education). Children's pedestrian knowledge and road crossing and playing behaviors were assessed using a pre- and posttest self-report questionnaire. Their self-reported road crossing behaviors were validated using an observational schedule and brief interview.
Results. Children in the high and moderate intervention groups were significantly more likely to cross the road with adult supervision (P = 0.013) and play away from the road (P = 0.000) than the comparison group. No differences were detected in children's pedestrian safety knowledge between the intervention and comparison groups.
Conclusions. While several methodological limitations may have influenced the study outcomes, these data nonetheless indicate that in the study sample the CPIPP educational intervention deaccelerated the natural increase in children's pedestrian-related risk behavior.
Children in the urban environment: An issue for the new public health agenda
1996, Health and Place
Children's independent mobility and access are routinely undermined by the structures and constraining values of contemporary urban environments. Although they are major users of their local areas, children are conspicuous by their absence in discussions about transport, planning and environmental health and there have been few attempts in the UK to modify the urban environment so that children's needs are met. Instead, behaviour modification approaches have predominated, in which children are seen as objects to be fitted into the adult constructed world. In place of such victim blaming approaches a new public health analysis would emphasize environmental and social influences on children's quality of life. Manipulation of the urban environment rather than the child offers the best prospects for creating cities that are healthier—for children and consequently for other vulnerable users. In this process the views of children themselves need to be heard, so that policy makers make realistic decisions about how urban environments are designed and managed.

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Effects of a traffic club on road safety knowledge and self-reported behaviour of young children and their parents

Abstract

Accid. Anal. Prev.

Children's perception of safety and danger on the road

The effectiveness of the ‘Tufty Club’ in road safety education

British Journal of Educational Psychology

Principles of behaviour modification

Cognitive Characteristics as Predictors of Children's Understanding of Safety and Prevention

Journal of Pediatric Psychology

Road accidents in Great Britain 1989: The casualty report

Evaluation of the impact and penetration of a children's Traffic Club

Trials of a road safety booklet for a pre-school traffic club

The road safety aspects of the Tufty Club