Road Safety Week runs annually, to educate children on the various ways we can all be safe on our roads, be it on foot, bicycle, public transport or cars.
This year’s theme was “Let's Talk About Speed” and ran from 20 to 25 November.
The week was launched on day one with a video from Councillor Tracey Rawlins, Executive Member for Environment and Transport, outlining what the activities and events planned were about, and a message about educating our young people on safety and setting them up for a future of active travel.
Along with the national partner Brake, we ran a wide programme of events and activities supported by Greater Manchester Police, NSL (parking) and local schools. The activities focused on educating children around key areas of road safety including safe roads, safe vehicles and speeds, and the importance of inclusivity to keep us all safe on the roads, no matter who we are, or how we travel.
The events and activities included:
- theatre workshops,
- bike maintenance sessions,
- parking patrols
- school streets closures (trial events where streets around schools are closed off the vehicles at drop off and collection times, to protect children and encourage active travel)
There were also ‘days of action’ events where our neighbourhoods teams worked with GMP and other partners to address a variety of road safety issues including:
- illegal or inappropriate parking,
- parking on pavements and causing obstruction,
- speeding and other moving traffic offences.
During the week of events, we held:
- 30 Theatre workshops delivered by Box Clever, Performance in Education, and Wizard Theatre to 29 schools
- 12 Dr Bike 'Get Winter Ready' Maintenance events delivered by Bee Pedal Ready, Cera Cycloan, and Revolve Manchester, resulting in 131 bikes checked and repaired
- 85 NSL Parking Services patrols across Manchester schools
- 26 Speed Awareness Toolkits allocated to schools across the city
- School street events at schools across the city
- 10 “days of action” events
- 'Good Egg' in-car safety event
- GMP Roadside safety event