Last month, two Year 7’s from my school were hit by cars as they were crossing the road, although luckily neither was injured. This raised the question in my mind as to how much we take for granted the way in which we can cross the road safely, but also made me ask myself: how hard can it be? As far as I can tell, you wait until there are no cars close to you on the road, and then cross when you deem it to be safe enough so as you will not be hit by anything on the road. Even better, you survey the road near to you and find the safest part of the road to cross (often at a set of traffic lights).

At least one of the kids that were hit was listening to his Mp3 player at the time, and this kind of distraction seems to be a fairly common cause of accident on the road. When listening to music, or when you are speaking on your mobile phone, it is harder to hear cars coming along the road, and so you have to be extra vigilant before and during crossing. Often, you can lose concentration when walking with these distractions- you are putting yourself at risk when crossing the road if you do. In my opinion, all schoolchildren should be educated about road safety properly in Primary School; this could help to reduce the amount of road collisions involving children without having to teach them when it could already be too late.

Even if you are distracted in any way, surely the only foolproof advice one can give is to have a little bit of common sense, and if there is any reason why you may be impeded in crossing the road, wait until the way is clear. If all of us- not just the schoolchildren- could heed this simple advice, crossing the road would become a far less dangerous task. We could all concentrate on the more important aspects of life and the enjoying thereof.