As the world marks the
third United Nations Global Road Safety Week from Monday, parents and guardians have been enjoined to encourage their children and wards to join road safety clubs in their schools in order to get more familiar with road safety requirements.
The Sector Commander, Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Rivers State Command, Mr Sunday Oghenekaro, who made the call in a chat with The Tide in his office in Port Harcourt, yesterday, noted that belonging to such clubs would further enhance their road safety consciousness to and from school daily.
Oghenekaro said as the children and wards go to school daily, the parents should provide child restraints in order to ensure that they are properly secured in the vehicle they entered.
He advised that when parents are walking with their children on the road, they should ensure that the children are held on the left hand off the road to avoid them from having contact with an in-coming vehicles.
The Sector Commander also enjoined parents to guide their children not to run on the path of a vehicle, those under 10 years of age should not be left alone unguided to walk on the pedestrian walk-ways to school, not to allow their children to play around a parked vehicle, children should be taught the road drills of looking left, right and left again to ascertain that the road is clear before they cross the road fast and not diagonally.
According to him, parents and teachers should listen to complaints and observation by children about their school’s bus driver or the family driver who took them to school and back home, as there are some bad drivers who over-speed, use mobile phone while on the steering, lack of concentration and consideration for pedestrians on zebra crossings as well as guide them from playing on the road ways.
On the theme of this year’s week, “Children On Road Safety”, the state FRSC boss said this was very apt because records have it that 30 children of five years of age have road crashes daily while 500 die every day, globally.
He said the safety of children in transit should be a general concern and not for the road safety organisations alone, but that the FRSC, Rivers State command is taking the weeklong campaign of Save Kids’ Lives to all nooks and crannies especially the educating institutions, government, private offices and places of workshop for their collaboration in promoting child safety as well as to test drivers at the various motor parks and terminals of fleet operators on drugs before they embark on any journey.
The weeklong programme will end on May 10, 2015, with a call on all concerned to sign the Child Declaration On Save Kids’ Lives.

Collins Barasimieye