HEALTH EDUCATION RESEARCH Theory & Practice

medicine Kwame Ampofo-Boateng and James A.Thomson This paper reviews both the techniques and main content of current road safety education programmes. It also considers experimental and other research that has a bearing on these issues. The main conclusion is that current road safety methods are fairly ineffective in teaching the skills that pedestrians need to deal with in the road environment. Most road safety education is concerned with instilling rules and knowledge at a broadly conceptual level and relies primarily on verbal methods to do so. However, although superficially straightforward, road crossing in fact requires the integration of complex perceptual, cognitive and motor skills that frequently require practical training rather than verbal instruction. The paper reviews the evidence for such a skill-based approach and discusses techniques by which such skills might be developed in young children