An evaluation of child pedestrian training in the UK: the scope for interactive technologies to aid teaching

Sixty four per cent of the children killed or seriously injured (KSI) on the roads of Great Britain are child pedestrians. Recognition of this issue by the Department for Transport resulted in the introduction of a pilot child pedestrian training scheme, “Kerbcraft”, from 2002-2007. Kerbcraft, which aimed to teach roadside pedestrian skills, was trialled in 75 local authorities across England and Scotland, and was successful in improving child pedestrian behaviour at the roadside. This paper presents the findings from a new survey of these 75 local authorities, identifying what training is currently given, in what ways the learning and delivery mechanisms have changed since the original pilot, and the extent to which scheme evaluation and interactive gaming are and could be used in child pedestrian training.The results suggest that the majority of local authorities continued to provide pedestrian training but in an adapted form; often shortening schemes without considering the resulting impact on participants? knowledge and skills acquisition. Accompanied by a widespread lack of effective evaluation it is difficult to ascertain the effectiveness of these schemes compared to Kerbcraft. Given central government road safety funding cuts of 40%, along with a lack of effective evaluation, child pedestrian training could be one area at risk, and supplementary materials may be required to add value to training schemes in the future. This paper argues that interactive video environments could be one addition to the range of training aids available to child pedestrians.