Every child starting school for the first time this September is to be given a free high visibility safety vest in a joint effort to further reduce child fatalities and serious injuries on the roads.
The initiative is being promoted by the Road Safety Authority (RSA) and the ESB.
The 12 years between 1997 and 2009 saw a reduction overall of over 45 per cent in the number of children killed on roads here, Noel Brett, chief executive of the authority said today at the launch of the back-to-school safety campaign.
The figures from new resarch conducted by the authority also found that a total of 246 children up to the age of 14 were killed on Irish roads in that period. A further 1,013 were seriously injured.
Over half of the children killed or seriously injured were cyclists or pedestrians and over a third were passengers in cars.
Most of the accidents involving children occurred between 4pm and 6.59pm, and some 61 per cent of child fatalities were outside built-up areas where the roads had speed limits higher than 60km/h, according to the research detailed in the RSA's Child Casualties Report.
The largest reduction in child fatalities in the period had been among cyclists and car passengers .
In 1997 some 27 children were killed and 135 seriously injured on the roads. This had dropped in 2009 to 12 killed and 40 injured. However this was still too many and in fact one child death on the roads was too many, Mr Brett said.
He urged and parents and teachers to prioritise road safety in their dealings with children.
Each back to school list by parents should include bicycle helmets and other life saving road gear, Mr Brett suggested.
“It’s also important to demonstrate good road safety behaviour at all times as your child will learn from your example. Teach your child about responsible and safe road use when walking, cycling or travelling to school by bus or car. Children are our most vulnerable road-users so it’s really important that they are streetwise about road safety,” Mr Brett said.
He said teachers should include a road safety lesson in their classes.
“Attitudes to road safety are formed at a young age, so we would encourage teachers to inlude road safety in their lesson plans,” he said.
ESB Electric Ireland was funding some 80,000 vests and the packs, to be given to all junior infants will include leaflets and safe cross codes, said the company's deputy chief executive Johnny Shine.
Safety advice from the authority includes that all children should be properly restrained when travelling in cars, and that they should never be left alone in cars
Small children should not cross roads alone because they cannot judge how far away a car is or how fast it's going.
Children walking on country roads should wear reflective bands and bright clothing and they should also be taught how get on and off a bus safely.
Children cycling to school should wear reflective clothing and safety helmets on all journeys and check that bikes had proper brakes, bells and lights.
The full safety report is available online at rsa.ie