Charity urges adults to 'take responsibility' for children's road safety
Almost 600 children were injured or killed on our roads in 2023.
Adults are being urged to "take responsibility for keeping children safe" after new analysis found an average of nearly 50 young boys and girls are killed or seriously injured on Britain's roads every month.
Road safety charity Brake, which issued the plea, said 17 children aged seven and under died and 574 suffered serious injuries in crashes in 2023.
During the previous year, 20 children in that age range were killed and 552 were seriously injured.
In Gloucestershire, 36 children were harmed on the road in 2023, with six suffering serious injuries.
The figures are based on analysis of Department for Transport (DfT) data.
Brake also revealed that child fatalities are involved in around 7% of cases where its road crash victim support service is used.
The charity is running an initiative on Wednesday named Beep Beep! Day which will see more than 90,000 children aged between two and seven given road safety messages by schools, nurseries and childminders.
Ross Moorlock, chief executive of Brake, said: "As grown ups, we must always take responsibility for keeping children safe on our roads but this is a great opportunity to start conversations about road danger and help them understand why road safety is so important.
"We see, every day, the devastating effects of road crashes on families, through the work of our national road victim service, which this month is supporting 60 families following the death of a child in a road crash.
"It's shocking that the number of children who have been killed or seriously injured in road crashes has risen in recent years.
"At Brake, we are doing everything we can to prevent road death and injury, and we will continue to campaign for the solutions that we know will make our journeys safer, whoever we are and however we travel.
"We call on the Government to issue its long-awaited road safety strategy with urgency, with evidence-based measures to end road death and injury."
on our roads is a tragedy and our thoughts remain with the families of everyone who has lost a loved one in this way.
“Keeping children safe is a top priority and it’s vital we make sure they know how to safely travel on and around our roads. Our long-established THINK! campaign has a number of road safety resources for schools and help for parents to teach children about how to use roads safely.
A DfT spokesperson said: “Every death on our roads is a tragedy and our thoughts remain with the families of everyone who has lost a loved one in this way.
“Keeping children safe is a top priority and it’s vital we make sure they know how to safely travel on and around our roads. Our long-established THINK! campaign has a number of road safety resources for schools and help for parents to teach children about how to use roads safely.
“We are also developing a new Road Safety Strategy, the first in over a decade, to ensure the UK's roads remain among the safest in the world.”