EDUCATING CHILDREN

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 40, 10 May 1927, Page 10

EDUCATING CHILDREN

POINTING A MORAL COMPREHENSIVE CAMPAIGN In view of the idea of the Auckland Automobile Asociation to secure some form of education for children on traffic dangers and procedure, the following notes, indicating the extent of the scheme recently finalised in America, are of interest:— Beginning with a lesson to children on the dangers of playing in city streets, visual education in traffic safety, through the medium of a series of striking posters depicting traffic hazards, became a regular part of classroom work in San Francisco public schools in March under arrangements made by the California State Automobile Association with the city board of education. The association programme calls for extension of the safety instruction work to schools in cities throughout Northern and Central California and was launched in view of the continued increase in child fatalities resulting from" traffic accidents. POSTERS USED To teach children through the eye the dangers of modern traffic, each poster portrays a major traffic hazard encountered by boys and girls in their use of city streets. After being made the subject of a preliminary talk, the poster is to be kept on display for a month in the classroom when it will be replaced by -a new poster. The Association Public Safety Department is supplying teachers with bulletins containing child accident statistics, suggestions for safe conduct on streets and other data that may be used in talks to the pupils. The theme of Safety Poster No. 1 is summarised in the accompanying lecture in the sentence: “Playing on the city streets is on a par with playing on railroad tracks.” IMPORTANT STATISTICS After analysing general and local statistics on accidents to children resulting from playing in the streets, the association bulletin to teachers points out:

Children should be urged to use the playgrounds, the school yards, their own back yards if they have them, vacant lots and the city parks. “Statistics indicate that the child begins to play an important role- in the accident situation after the third year. As he grows older his part becomes bigger and less limited in scope. Accidental fatalities in the third year are twice those in the second year. The tragic increase continues and in the age group, 5 to 9, a peak is reached, not again attained until we reach the age group, 60 to 64 years. “The most dangerous months for children are April. Jaine. August and October. In 1926 between 630 and 650 children in this country under 15 years of age lost their lives during each of these months. The lowest month in 1926 was February, also the lowest in total number of automobile deaths, when only 130 children were killed. “Surveys and studies of the locations of child accidents show that the dangers lie just beyond the congested business district, in highly congested residential sections, where yards are the exception.”

GUARD FOR FORD Following Henry Ford’s accident, reported by cable recently, when a big car drove his coupe off the road and put him in hospital, Ford’s wife accomplished what his associates have been trying to do for years. She obtained a promise from the motor magnate that he would in future submit to a constant secret service guard. It was at first thought that the recent accident was caused deliberaf-ly, but Ford’s secret service later announced that the other car concerned had been located, and the accident was found to be unintentional.