DANGERS ON ROAD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27383, 8 May 1950, Page 6

DANGERS ON ROAD

Pre-school Children SAFETY CAMPAIGN PA WELLINGTON, May 6. Four children under school age were killed and 79 were injured in road accidents last year. This information is give in a leaflet addressed to parents of pre-school children just issued by the Transport Department. The total injury accidents were the same as in 1948, but 29 more than in 1947. Pre-school children killed on the roads were four fewdr than in 1948, but one more than in 1947. About 200,000 copies of the leaflet are to be issued as part of the campaign recommended by the Road Safety Council last year. They will go to Plunket Society branches, kindergartens, some branches of the Women’s Division of Federated Farmers, and to school children with brothers and sisters under school age. The leaflet draws attention to typical situations which may be dangerous to toddlers —open gates, parked vehicles, carelessness with wheeled toys, and ball games in streets. It warns parents to watch children carefully on the streets and provide a safe play area. Kerb drill, the leaflet advises, is a life-saver, and it also urges parents to have an adult or older child to shepherd a five-year-old to school until he has learned to find his own way safely. Publicity for motorists is to be conducted through automobile associations and newspaper advertisements. Precautions to safeguard the preschool child are to be made a feature of road safety lessons to senior school pupils. A Transport Department officer warned against leaving young children in the back seats of cars, whether parked or in motion. Quite young children, he said, had been killed by opening car doors and faffing to the road.