It's a well-known truth that teens and adults should join together to overcome some issues. So we decided to work with Moscow policemen on the main idea of the project: How to help teens and adults to be careful on the road so to save their lives.
The ideas
We are students from Moscow High School 548. We live in a very big city with 13.2 million residents and every day we face at least two problems: heavy traffic and overcrowded streets. We realize that a lot of people, especially teens, constantly use different electronic devices such as smartphones, MP3-players with earphones, tablets and others. They use them everywhere. These can cause serious problems for road safety.
Thinking over the issue, we decided to collaborate with the Moscow traffic police. The policemen gave statistics about traffic accidents and told us that, since the beginning of 2017, there have already been six road accidents involving teens using electronic devices while crossing the street. Moreover, some of them did not use the zebra crossings.
We became interested in the topic and decided to work on it.
Students and police officers began to brainstorm on ways to bring this problem to the public’s attention and to discuss the pros and cons of using electronic devices on the roads. We realized that crossing the road wearing earphones could endanger your own life and the lives of other traffic participants.
As a result, we came up with the moto “Play with gadgets on the road but play for road safety” and we began to see more clearly the reasons why people don’t always follow road safety rules.
Also, we developed a questionnaire to interview schoolmates, parents and teachers, drew some road signs and filmed a social media video.
We want teens and adults to be aware of general road safety rules, with or without gadgets.
We think parents as well as teachers are responsible for the road safety education of their children.
The initiatives
The students were divided into three groups. The first group was responsible for the questionnaire; the second group was in charge of the video; and the third was tasked with designing road signs.
The first group came up with a questionnaire consisting of seven questions to investigate the community perception of their issues. They used an on-line Google form to ask teens; they used paper forms to survey their parents, and they asked two dozen strangers on the streets. The result of the group’s survey was that more than 90% of traffic participants use gadgets every single day and say they can’t do without them.
This information has been given in our presentation.
The second group (of four people) wrote a script and shot a video. The process of filming was fully supervised and guided by the Moscow road police. The message of the video is to draw the attention of the community to road safety, including both drivers and pedestrians, and to motivate teens to study and follow traffic rules.
The third group designed five road signs. Three signs were intended to attract drivers’ attention to people wearing earphones and two signs were for pedestrians.
In addition, in school we had a workshop about road safety by volunteers from different classes and grades during which we studied and discussed the advantages (communication with parents, routing, checking mails, listening to music) and disadvantages (a high risk of accidents, lowered attention, becoming a victim of crime,) of using gadgets on the road.
The video was posted on the YouTube channel and the link can be viewed on the school web-site. http://www.mhs548.ru/
The traffic police response to the project was very supportive and encouraging and they mentioned our work on the official web-site.
http://www.gibdd.ru/r/77/news/3033252/
https://xn--80a2a8b.xn--j1adp.xn--b1aew.xn--p1ai/news/window/10157562/
http://donskoy.mos.ru/safety-and-security/the-traffic-police-informere/d...
Moscow police highly appreciate the initiatives and participation of our students and teachers.
Working on the project, we found out a lot about pedestrian behavior on the roads.
Hopefully, the video and the road signs can improve the traffic situation in Moscow to some extent.
Thank you for the opportunity to participate in this great project!!!!
