Road Safety Subtlety

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30038, 24 January 1963, Page 2

Road Safety Subtlety

Road safety organisers in Britain do not use the words “road safety” in their accident prevention work, according to Miss Betty Rathbone, • chief road safety organiser for Sevenoaks, Kent, in Christchurch yesterday.

“It’s a funny thing, but we find that most adults tend to think they know all about road safety. So our job is rather to remind them gently without their realising it,” said Miss Rathbone, who has held her job for the last eight years.

“The two words ‘road safety* we just don’t use if we can possibly help. If we did, no-one would come. So instead of having special road safety car rallies we call them such things as ‘courtesy car’ rallies or ‘better-driving’ car rallies, and the people flock along,” she said. This sort of subtlety applied in all branches of road

safety work, said Miss Rathbone. The whole art was to “get the message” across as firmly but as unobtrusively as possible. For example, it was not only the children present at sessions of the British national road safety children’s quiz competition who were learning the elements of road safety. “We find their parents are always there, too, trying to work out the answers first,” she said. One important feature of the work was the emphasis

on cycle training in the schools—“so essential amidst the tremendous traffic congestion throughout the country,” Miss Rathbone said. "Although at home we find the parents willing to teach their children how to ride their bicycles, they are not so aware of the need to teach them how to use the road, and how to position themselves on the road.” With an average of 19 persons being killed in England alone every day of the year, these precautionary measures from council authorities were of considerable value, Miss Rathbone said. Police made regular visits to all schools in their area, checking cycle fitness and giving lecture-demonstrations on cycle and general traffic behaviour. From this children could be tested for their certificate and badge supplied by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents in the United Kingdom. Organised by the traffic section of the police, this was proving worth while in that many

parents were now buying cycles for their children only after the test had been passed. Other activities of Miss Rathbone include the organisation of motor-cycle training courses. With the driving licence age limit of 18 years in Britain, motor-cycling was more popular with the 16 to 18 male age group than in New Zealand, where car licences may be taken at 16 years.

Also on her regular programme was the checking of all accidents in her area "keeping an eye” on particular pieces of road where many accidents were occurring and consulting with the police officers and surveyors. Another frequent task was the presentation of talks, films and demonstrations to various organisations and at fairs and exhibitions, in her district, which has a radius of 12 miles. Suggestions From N.Z. Miss Rathbone is not visiting New Zealand purely for a holiday. “Since arriving nearly two months ago I’ve been watching this road business,” she said. Contacts with Transport Department officials and plans for visiting New Zealand schools next month promised a variety of useful suggestions to be taken back home next March. Miss Rathbone has been impressed with the work of traffic officers here. In Britain, where the work was carried out by the police, it was more difficult to ensure first-class traffic control, she said. She was also Impressed with the good relations between pedestrians and drivers, who “drive more politely than at home. With the concentration of vehicles on the roads and in the cities it is more or less everyone for himself.” Another excellent idea were the buzzers used in some New Zealand cities at pedestrian crossings. “I'm certainly going to take this one back home,” she said.