Reducing the speed limit around school zones to 30km/h can reduce crashes and fatality rate significantly. Safer streets that can protect our children, and create harmonious neighbourhoods are possible in our children's lifetime.
Safer School Street Network is an initiative to build a coalition of schools and school communities who advocate for safer streets around schools.
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WHAT IS SAFER SCHOOL STREETS NETWORK?
Safer School Street Network is an initiative to build a coalition of schools and school communities including parents, guardians, teachers, nearby residents and communities who advocate for safer streets around schools.
Our network advocates a safer school street by addressing risk factors for crashes around schools through street design and national policy change. These have been identified by organisations we work closely with such as Global Road Safety Partnership. These risk factors are addressed using policy and design as primary vehicles to change our school streets for better.
Safer streets that can protect our children, and create harmonious neighbourhoods are possible in our children's lifetime. Would you consider joining our network to see a school near you transformed for safety?
WHY ARE SAFER SCHOOL STREETS NEEDED?
Approximately 6000 road casualties happen annually involving children and young adults. According to the Department of Statistics Malaysia for 2020, road fatality is one of the main causes of deaths in Malaysia, and is the NUMBER 1 cause of death for children ages 0-14 in Malaysia.
According to global research high speeds are the primary cause of death around streets worldwide, above every other risk factor. A child that is hit at 60kmh has a 90% chance of death on our school streets. Yet we see speeding commonplace at schools zones throughout our country.
Our immediate action has been to educate our children how to behave around our roads. Two problems arise when we do this: research has shown that education has not been proven to reduce the risk of crashes around schools. Second, the blame of the crash is pushed to the child instead of the speeding driver putting the child at risk.
A different approach would be to increase enforcement around school zones. However, this intervention is costly from a human resource perspective and cannot guarantee safe driving behaviours around the clock.
We believe a third route is possible by designing self-enforcing, and self-educating street environments that can enforce safer driving behaviours around the clock, at school zones nationwide.
HOW CAN SAFER STREETS BE ACHIEVED?
DESIGN
Empirical research has shown that safe street design can in self-enforce safe driving behaviours around schools.
Implementing thoughtful design measures can help reduce speeds - from speed bumps, raised crossings, and narrowing lanes to changing the environment of a school street with plants and colours. Comprehensive design techniques using visual and other sensory inputs to signal to drivers that they are entering an interactive, multimodal space can be very effective.
If you’re interested in reading more about designing safer streets for kids, Global Designing Cities Initiative has a concise and informative guide, Designing Streets for Kids, available for free.
POLICY
On July 15th, Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, who is also the Chairman of the Cabinet Committee on Road Congestion and Safety, announced a policy change to reduce speed limits around school zones to an enforceable 30 km/h. The goal of this policy change is to make school streets safer for children. However, policy change also need to go hand-in-hand with other implementations such as good design.
ENFORCEMENT
Besides signages, enforcement can also play a major role in ensuring safer streets. The help of school security guards, or a “lollipop man” to help students cross can help with children’s safety when crossing the streets.
WHO SHOULD JOIN THE SAFER SCHOOL STREETS NETWORK?
Everyone! Each of us would have a connection to a school, directly or indirectly. Whether you’re a parent, a teacher, or a member of a community; you may live near a school, or have nieces and nephews in schools, or you simply care about the safety of our children - you’re welcome to sign up and support the movement.
HOW DO WE SIGN UP?
We’re thrilled that you’re interested in signing up! Simply click JOIN NOW below, fill in your information, and you will automatically be added to our map of community.