Road Safety, Cycling and Walking to School

Safer Routes to School

The Safer Routes to School initiative aims to promote safer, more environmentally sustainable and healthier ways of getting to and from school with particular emphasis on walking and cycling. To achieve this, we need to improve conditions (both in safety and the environment) on the main walking and cycling routes to school. Schemes can include physical measure such as safer crossing points and may involve work within the school grounds.

Projects involve the investigation of school travel patterns usually carried out with the commitment to a School Travel Plan. This often identifies engineering and educational measures to improve safety and reduce car use on the route between home and school. These measures can be considered as part of a Safer Routes project and may include:

• pedestrian crossings, improved pavements
• school zones, traffic calming, parking restrictions
• cycle routes and cycle parking
• road safety education, training and publicity
• health information
• personal security advice
• walking

If You Have to Drive

• Park well away from school entrances and yellow zigzags.
• Find a location some distance from the school so that you can "park and stride". This will help your children to experience some of the benefits of walking to school and reduce school gate congestion.
• Talk to other parents about sharing lifts to reduce congestion and pollution.
• Make sure that you child gets out on the pavement side when you are dropping them off.
• Don't leave your engine running when waiting to collect children - an idling engine produces 80 per cent more pollution than when a vehicle is in motion. One in seven children have asthma. Medical evidence suggests that this is related to traffic fumes.