Six kids hit by cars: child safety experts urge drivers to take care

CHILD education experts are pleading for drivers to take care today after six children were hit by cars in Sydney in the past week.

CHILD education experts are pleading for drivers to take care today after six children were hit by cars in Sydney in the past week.

Motoring education authority Venera Owens said children did not have the same peripheral vision as adults and could not judge distance the same way.

An NRMA education team delivered a road safety course to Prairievale Primary School this morning to eight- and nine-year-olds following the incidents.

Using hovercraft and a few broken eggs, children were taught the impact of motion, speed and collision, in the class which uses basic physics to explain road safety.

“Every year we teach road safety, unfortunately that message gets lost, we need to reinforce it constantly. Every teacher wants to make sure their students are safe in and outside the school grounds,” Prairievale Primary School teacher Maree Hearn said.

“We have seen what has happened in the past week on the road. It pays to reinforce that message which we teach in school _ it’s vital they know what to do in a car, or walking on the road, and this way they get the message while enjoying the performance.”

The NRMA taught them to hold hands, to listen for cars and wear helmets with the help of a hovercraft and an egg without a seatbelt.

“These accidents usually happen in a spate, and then you feel the road safety push, it should be pushed constantly so we don’t have weeks like this on the road,” Ms Hearn said.

Venera Owens, NRMA senior manager of motoring education and information said the NRMA had held the class in more than 100 schools across NSW to teach children the laws of physics.

“instead of telling kids to wear their helmets, we decided to take a scientific approach,” she said.

She said she wanted children to learn why they should wear a helmet and a seatbelt, not just because they are obeying a request, but so they knew they were protecting themselves.

“Science is a means of communicating,” she said.

“We are teaching them it’s not just important to wear a helmet but it’s useless unless they are wearing it correctly. We need to understand, children are children, they are no physiologically developed enough to judge distance. we need to be proactive in driving around children.”

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Six children have been hit by cars in the past week, including a boy hit near Penrith on his way to school on Friday, a three-year-old in Blacktown on Wednesday and a seven year old girl hit on Sunday night.

The girl suffered serious head and leg injuries after a car struck her, her mother and her three year old sibling in Rosehill on Sunday as they walked through the car park. She remains in a critical but stable condition at Westmead Childrens Hospital.

David Dabbene, 8, said his favourite part of the class was when the hovercraft used in the demonstration to show how it was hard to stop with momentum nearly crashed into people.

The Rock Bus visited the NRMA class at Prairievale as part of the Fair Go For The West Campaign across Sydney’s west.