Road safety is equally important for people of all ages – from the youngest to the oldest. The students at Aurel Rainu Technological High School in Romania kept this in mind when the developed their road safety awareness campaign.
The ideas
The students didn’t want to see any of their classmates or community members become the victim of a traffic accident, so they decided to develop an initiative that would help keep everyone safe. They began by talking in class about road accidents in general, the different ways to prevent them, road rules and road signs, and the dos and don’ts for pedestrians.
Through their discussions, they came to some important conclusions about the causes of road accidents and the most urgent needs for improving road safety in their community. They were able to identify some of the factors behind road accidents, paying special attention to the fact that many drivers – and pedestrians – simply ignore important traffic rules that are in place to help keep them safe. They also concluded that while some people ignore the rules because it is convenient for them, others don’t obey the rules because they are not aware of them. And finally, they were able to see clearly that road safety is equally important that people of all ages.
The students decided to focus their initiative on these key points: making sure people of all ages understand and respect the rules of the road to make road safety a responsibility for the whole community.
The initiatives
In order to reach different age groups, the students designed activities for the local kindergarten, primary school and their own high school. For the kindergarten, they organized a “march for life” in which the young students were given road safety lessons by the older students from Aurel Rainu outside of their school, ending with a walk around the area to put the rules and behaviors they´d discussed into action.
By the end of their training, the kindergarteners had learned how to cross the street properly in any situation, as pedestrians or cyclists. They practiced the road safety lessons is a variety of environments, from the crossing near their school to busy downtown intersections. The group took a different approach to older students from Diaconu Coresi School and from their own school, involving them in dynamic discussions about road safety. They concluded that it is necessary to respect road safety rules in order to respect ourselves.
The overall campaign was called “Green for Life”, and as a final action the students spelled out ‘Green for Life’ with their bodies and took a photo of it, sharing the photo and a description of the campaign and its mission with the community. All of the different classes considered it to be a real success in highlighting the correct and civilized way of moving on the street and in the community. The younger students further participated by promoting the campaign within their families, and by becoming partners with the group from Aurel Rainu to ensure that the road safety activities continue within their own schools and others in the area.
