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 “Safer Roads for All” and ran from 14 to 20 November (with Manchester running an extra week of activities up 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, the new rules for road users, 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,
- traffic congestion,
- idling vehicles and air pollution,
- speeding and other moving traffic offences.
During the fortnight of events, we held:
- 39 Theatre workshops delivered by Box Clever and Wizard Theatre in schools.
- 14 Bike Maintenance events delivered by Bike Right, CeraCyloan and Revolve MCR
- 89 NSL Parking Services patrols across 20 schools (resulting in 43 PCNs being issued)
- 94 No Parking signs allocated to 29 schools across the city
- School street trial events at St Margarets Primary School in Withington and Acacias Primary School in Burnage to promote active travel
- 13 “days of action” events