Mobility and Road Safety Education
Many experts agree that the process of learning how to use the road safely and competently needs to begin at an early age. Parents should start teaching their children how to use the road before they start going to kindergarten, and continue building on this basis throughout kindergarten and school. However, mobility and road safety education is only successful if the knowledge the child learns can be applied to practical situations in their day-to-day interactions with traffic.
During the first year of their lives, most of a child's road use will be experienced in the company of their parents. As such, these adults and their own real behavior provide role models for the child. They can also build on this by actively passing on information to their children or teaching them to be careful in specific situations on the routes they travel in everyday life.
The aims of mobility and road safety education in kindergartens include promoting perception, training psychomotor skills and abilities, teaching social understanding, promoting the skills required in handling traffic situations, and motivating children to contribute to protecting the environment. When they start school, depending on the individual child's sphere of action and how they use the road, the focus will initially shift to bicycle training and getting to school. In addition to learning traffic regulations and improving their social awareness and ability to recognize dangerous situations on the road, children of this age also gain practical experience of how to travel safely by bicycle and act safely in and around their schools and homes.
At higher school grades, mobility and road safety education focuses primarily on developing the appropriate social skills. Legal regulations and specific knowledge relating to combining alcohol and drugs with road use also play a role. Another central topic is ensuring safety and exercising responsibility in personal mobility, and engendering an awareness of the economic and ecological factors involved in mobility.
Collaborations with external partners and facilities such as the children's parents, the police, transportation companies, associations, organizations, and initiatives are also an essential supplement to the work carried out in schools.