Associate feature: Road safety - a skill for life

As most people use roads on a fairly regular basis, it's important to make sure we do so as safely as possible. 

Sadly, road accidents still represent one of the highest causes of accidental death to our young people. 

Road Safety Scotland (RSS) promotes road safety learning as a skill for life and work, and works in close partnership with key stakeholders. Early intervention is key to shaping a child’s life chances and, as adults, we must strive to lead by example. 

As we know, children best learn by being involved in their learning and to that end, RSS learning resources, for children and young people aged 3-18 years, and linked to Curriculum for Excellence, encourage active and experiential learning. 

Throughout the current COVID-19 pandemic, RSS has continued to promote its learning resources through social media platforms, focusing on supporting parents, carers and teachers through this challenging time, by signposting to activities on our websites. 

Much of the focus has been for young children, through the medium of RSS’s early years resource ‘Go Safe with Ziggy!’ which provides that early intervention and role-modelling. 

Ziggy is the start of the road safety journey, a journey continuing through the school years and beyond, equipping our young people to become life’s good role models. 

As we move out of lockdown, RSS will continue with the messaging supporting families and teachers, and ensure that all road safety learning resources are high quality and age-appropriate. 

Scotland’s new Road Safety Framework to 2030 has recently been launched and developed with an ultimate vision of “Scotland to have the best road safety performance in the world”. 

The journey to achieving this vision will also include ambitious targets where the number of people being killed or seriously injured on our roads will be halved by 2030.  RSS will be one of many partners who will continue to contribute to the outcomes to deliver the vision.

Road Safety Scotland’s resources are free and available online at www.roadsafety.scot/learning

This article was sponsored by Road Safety Scotland.