Road Aware Program

• Background
• Road Aware Projects
  • 0 - 4 year olds and their parents
  • 4 - 14 year olds and their parents
  • 15 - 20 year olds and their parents

Background

In November 2000 Barry Elliot, a researcher in the field of road safety, presented a paper Review of Good Practice: Children and Road Safety Education [pdf 1.02MB] to the Road Safety Council of Western Australia about Australian and international road safety education programs. Elliot made recommendations for the development of a comprehensive road safety education program for Western Australia.

Subsequently, the Road Aware Program was created to form part of the Road Safety Council’s state-wide strategy Arriving Safely: Road Safety Strategy for Western Australia 2003-2007. Arriving Safely aims to reduce the overall number of road crash fatalities and injuries in Western Australia.
In 2003, a strategic alignment was made with the School Drug Education Project to become School Drug Education and Road Aware (SDERA).

Road Aware Projects

The three priority areas identified to improve road safety for young people were based on the abovementioned research. They included:

0-4 year olds and their parents:

• an infant and child car restraint program;
• support to parents to improve child pedestrian safety and road use;
• road safety training for community health and child care workers;
• resources to encourage children and their parents to be involved in road safety.

4-14 year olds and their parents:

• greater emphasis on road safety in schools especially for Kindergarten to Year 3 through curriculum resources and professional development for school staff;
• statewide road safety support for teachers and parents, including online resources and take-home parent information materials.

15 – 20 year olds and their parents:

• a pre-driver (before L plates) program for young people (15 and 16 year olds) at school and out of school, including an opportunity for young people to sit the road rules test at school;
• a parent program to raise awareness about issues affecting young drivers and passengers and to promote increased supervised driving hours;
• a project targeting young people who are 'at risk' of not being able to get supervised driving experience;
• statewide community consultation with young people, schools, parents, local community based agencies and stakeholders; development of local and sustainable provision to support young people 'at risk' to achieve supervised driving hours.