BRAKE World Record
Ladeside Primary School took part in an attempt to break the world record for the largest school walking bus on Wednesday 11 June 2008, at 10.00am.
222 pupils took part in the attempt to break the world record for the largest ‘walking bus’
The Record-Breaking Walking Bus, co-ordinated by road safety charity Brake in partnership with Buckle My Shoe, aims to teach children life-saving road safety lessons and raise awareness about the appalling number of children killed and injured on foot. Six children are killed or seriously injured while walking EVERY DAY on UK roads.
It is hoped that more than 100,000 children around the UK will have taken part to teach children about safety on the roads and to raise valuable funds for Brake, the road safety charity. The event aims to break the current record of 57,476 children and aims to raise more than £70,000 for Brake’s work supporting the victims of road crashes, particularly traumatised children who have lost loved ones in road crashes.
A walking bus is a safe, healthy and environmentally-friendly way for children to get to and from school, holding hands in pairs and supervised by adults.
The event facilitated by CARS create awareness about the alternative route round the school, thus taking traffic away from the bottle neck in front of the school gate.
Through the event, Brake and Buckle My Shoe are calling for Government action to tackle child deaths and injuries on our roads, including compulsory road safety education in schools and ring-fenced funding for 20mph safety zones around every school and residential area.
Headteacher, Mrs Hamill says: “We want to keep our children safe by teaching them simple, but potentially life-saving, road safety lessons. Hopefully taking part in this fun record-breaking event will help children to remember what they have learned and take extra care when walking. We also hope the event will remind local drivers of the importance of slowing down around schools and homes.”
Sarah Fatica, General manager at Brake, says: "Far too many children are killed and seriously injured on our roads in tragedies that could be prevented, causing unimaginable pain to families and communities. It’s crucial that we teach children the importance of walking safely, but we also need to ensure our roads are as safe as possible, to enable children to get out and about without their lives being endangered. We’re urging all local drivers to play a part in this – by committing to always slowing down to 20mph around schools and homes.”
Chris Hargreaves, Sales director, Buckle My Shoe, says: “Everyone taking part is a credit to their school, as well as to road safety, and we wish them all every success in walking their way into the record books. At Buckle My Shoe, we are constantly searching for new ways in which we can support local communities and charities, so what better way to do this than combine the two and help keep children safe on our roads.
A horrifying number of children are injured on UK roads every day due to careless driving. We believe one of the best ways to tackle this is to educate children on how they can look after their own safety.
By linking up with Brake, we hope to take important road safety messages into as many schools as possible.”
Facts about children’s safety on roads:
Traffic is the biggest ‘accidental’ killer of children. In 2006 a horrifying 75 child pedestrians (under 16 years old) were needlessly killed and a further 2,017 seriously injured on UK roads.
Children are more likely to die on foot in the UK than in most Western European countries. Figures published by the Department for Transport puts the UK’s child pedestrian death rate (per population) as fifth worst in a list of 15 Western European countries*, three times higher than Norway and Sweden, and twice as high as France and Denmark. (*Figures for Italy and Luxembourg are not available.)
The proportion of primary school children walking to school has barely changed from the average in 1995-97 (52%) to 2006 (53%). However the number taken by car has steadily increased, from 30% in 1992-94, to 38% in 1995-97 to 41% in 2006.
