Child pedestrian road safety; practical training and interactive learning environments to improve road safety

Abstract

Pedestrian training is one method of road safety education used to improve roadside behaviour and crossing skills in order to improve road safety. ‘Kerbcraft’ is a comprehensive pedestrian training scheme, recommended by the United Kingdom government, which has been demonstrated to be effective in improving pedestrian skills at the roadside. Very few Local Authorities have adopted Kerbcraft in its entirety due to cost and time constraints, with just five out of 57 local authorities surveyed operating a full Kerbcraft scheme. With a lack of comprehensive evaluation, the effectiveness of these adapted schemes is unknown. Many local authorities supplement on-street training with in-class activities that are generally designed to target knowledge acquisition, rather than behavioural improvements. Interactive Video has been shown to have potential to improve ‘hard’ procedural skills such as those used when walking at the roadside. An interactive video has been developed, designed to improve skills when children cross between parked cars. The interactive video is shown to be a usable and engaging educational resource with primary school children and shows that it can positively influence on-street behaviour overall. The video was most successful in a junior school with a high level of engagement observed and least successful in a primary school where the level of observed engagement in the video was lower.

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