ROAD SAFETY EDUCATION FOR CHILDREN - THE USE OF JUNIOR TRAFFIC TRAINING CENTRES

Road safety in South Africa is a critical problem and a large percentage of fatal crashes include pedestrians that are children. A need exist to educate children about road safety. Educating children about road safety requires a comprehensive approach involving various role players using multi-media over several years with a lot of repetition. The focus of road safety education of children in the age group of 7-10 years should be on their role as pedestrians in traffic. Training should be focussed on repeating the basic lessons of crossing a street, walking on the right side of the road and other basic skills. Junior Traffic Training Centres (JTTC) is one of the means available to educate children about road safety. A JTTC is a simulated road environment where children can learn to use roads safely and responsibly without being exposed to life-threatening traffic hazards. This paper deals with the background of road safety education for children and with various design aspects of a JTTC.