Determinants and Stakeholders Influencing Children’s Road Safety Education

Abstract

Abstract:Road safety education is, widely, the best base and the greatest assurance of the future in terms of road safety prevention and promotion. Nowadays, RSE constitutes one of the main growing concerns in terms of complimentary education in many countries, taking into account, among other factors, the high rates of accidents that affect the health and welfare of childhood and adolescence. Furthermore, it is a necessity for the community health to create, train, encourage and lead positives attitudes for good road safety education. The general objective of this study was to describe the factors and stakeholders that have influence on the learning of road safety education and safe behaviors of children as road users. The results are very interesting. For example, when to parents have been asked about road safety education of their children, factors such as the parents influence and school environment have been considered as positive factors or stakeholders that influence on the road safety education of the children. Regarding children's opinion, most of the children consider that the drivers do not respect the rules never or sometimes, but only 5% of them believe that their parents do not respect the normative. However, a third part of the children reports signs of road aggression among their parents. Furthermore, 13% of the children do not feel safe when walks by their cities. This study shows the vital importance of the road safety education and key stakeholders, such as parents and the scholar system, to promote safe attitudes, behaviors and outcomes in terms of road safety. Also, the observed behaviors and circumstances related with road behavior of parents have an important influence on children's road safety education, that is crucial issue that must be addressed from different perspectives, due to high accident rates registered by children, who are a key population group to direct interventions in this regard, aiming to increase the effectiveness of interventions for welfare and health improvement, based on the child education.

Could Road Safety Education (RSE) Help Parents Protect Children? Examining Their Driving Crashes with Children on Board

“…Therefore, it is important to adopt a holistic perspective towards crash prevention, emphasizing all users who potentially partake in the problem. The key stakeholders involved in children’s road safety are mainly parents [ 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 ]. Although some studies have suggested that driving with children on board may contribute to decreasing the risk assumption of driving parents (also increasing their risk perception), most of the evidence agrees on the fact that more road safety education (RSE) is needed among them since it might improve parents’ skills for safe driving, or road safety skills [ 8 , 9 , 10 ].…”

“…The term “road safety skills” has been used in previous expert literature to refer to the gathering of a set of road-safety-friendly competencies acquired through road safety education (RSE), which are necessary for safe, healthy, harmonious traffic behavior [ 8 , 11 ]. Gender differences in road safety skills have been reported in some research, with a problematic divergence between men and women—males seem to obtain the poorest results in terms of positive attitudes towards road safety, traffic rule knowledge, and self-reported behaviors on the road [ 3 , 12 ]. Also, age is recognized as a potential influencing factor of road safety skills.…”

“…In the specific case of parents, road safety education constitutes a crucial issue, considering that they exert a relevant influence on the RSE of their children, who learn a significant part of their attitudes and behaviors on the road from their microsocial environment during the early stages of life [ 42 , 43 ]. Road safety education of parents plays, therefore, a relevant role in public health and within the sustainable development of countries [ 44 ] since it provides positive outcomes in the road safety skills of the community of drivers [ 3 ], and it may also condition the behaviors of future drivers [ 42 , 43 ]. In this sense, different stakeholders are involved in the development of road safety as a social issue, including schoolteachers, public and private institutions, and health agencies [ 23 , 30 , 40 ].…”

“…In this sense, different stakeholders are involved in the development of road safety as a social issue, including schoolteachers, public and private institutions, and health agencies [ 23 , 30 , 40 ]. However, it is still necessary to develop further strategies aimed at increasing the actions related to road safety education and to reduce the objective road risk [ 3 , 45 ].…”

The Application of Safety Education in Primary School Directorate in Indonesia

“…In addition, parents and school play an important role in safety education for children. As Alonso [11] has stated that parents' influence and school environment have been considered as positive factors that influence on the road safety education of the children because they are also involved in promoting the safe attitudes and behaviors [11].…”