Calls for 20mph speed limit around schools after 2,456 children killed or injured

All roads near schools should have a 20mph speed limit to ‘save lives’, a safety charity has warned.

At least 48 children were killed in the UK last year, road safety charity Brake says, citing data from British transport and Northern Irish police officials.

This amounts to almost one child almost every week, with 25% of deaths seeing excess speed be a factor.

Of those who died, 45 were in England, Scotland and Wales and three were in Northern Island.

According to provisional figures from the Department of Transport, 2,456 young people aged 15 or lower were seriously hurt or killed on Britain’s roads last year.

To ensure this never happens again, Brake is campaigning for a 20mph speed limit to be enforced on all roads nearby schools.

Dialling down the speed limit from 30mph to 20mph can ‘save lives’, Brake said, pointing to how a crash at 30mph has twice the kinetic energy.

While some councils have lowered speed limits, Brake found that nearly two-thirds of parents and guardians say nearby school roads don’t have 20mph zones.

According to research from Brake, 36% of parents don’t bother walking their child to school as the roads are too congested, with 25% saying the cars go too fast.

At Dropmore Infant School in Littleworth, a village in Buckinghamshire, the leafy roads that loop around it have next to no pavement or crossing patrol.

Yet Brake says some roads nearby have speed limits reaching up to 60mph, while those closest to the primary school are 30mph.

Headteacher Gitta Streete says she has been campaigning for local speed limits to be reduced for years.

‘What we often hear back is that because no one has been seriously hurt or killed on that road, there is no need to make any changes,’ she says.

‘One parent had their car door taken off by a passing car. That could easily have been a child, parent or carer being hit.’

County councillor Steven Broadbent said transport officials take road safety ‘incredibly seriously’ and they are aware of the situation at Dropmore.

‘We want to continue working as closely as possible with them and all schools to ensure all students have safe passage to and from school,’ he said.

Lucy Straker, campaigns manager at Brake, says the worries of teachers and parents at Dropmore are by no means alone.

‘Sadly, we know that Dropmore’s situation is being replicated across the country,’ she said.

‘We speak to lots of schools where teachers are doing everything they can to make the roads near their school safe, but ultimately they need support from their local council and decision-makers.’

Straker says that some 700 schools and nurseries were set to take part in Brake’s Kids Walk today, which saw families walking in groups and calling for safe journeys.

Wales, meanwhile, is set to become one of the first countries in the world to introduce a default 20mph limit on residential roads and busy pedestrian streets.

But a spokesperson from the Department of Transport said the Government has no plans to introduce ‘default or national 20mph speed limits in urban environments’.

‘Local authorities in England decide speed limits on their roads but we always encourage road designs that prioritise safety,’ they said.

For Straker, this isn’t good enough.

‘Why do we have to wait until a child is killed before we act?’ she said.

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