This National Road Safety Week, the Greens are calling on the government to create and promote a dedicated way for parents and school communities to report road safety concerns around their schools.
Safety around schools is a particularly important part of road safety – especially in the drop off and pick up hours. And while there’s been some really good steps forward in this area, we still have much more work to do.
Everyone who takes a child to and from school knows the local area well. They know the spots where cars still go too fast, where there’s a dodgy intersection, where things get a bit chaotic, or where the same problem happens over and over again. But all too often these local insights are only discussed between parents at the school gate or in the home, and aren’t heard by decision makers.
What the Greens are suggesting is that the government sets up and promotes an easy to use, centralised, dedicated way for parents and school communities to report road safety concerns. Over time this will mean decision makers get a proper and direct sense of commonly-identified local issues, and can take steps to deal with them.
We’re really glad there’s been improvements in road safety at schools, but it’s important to not be complacent. Whether it’s changes to speed limits, the removal of cars from some areas, new infrastructure, or something else, there are things that can be done to make school safer.
This idea is about drawing on local knowledge from parents and school communities to help inform further decisions. We hope the government will consider it with an open mind.
