The world depends mainly on motor vehicle mode of transportation since it maintains the economy and has a profound influence on our culture (Wetmore, 2003). Nevertheless, each and every day, the pedestrians like you and me, deserve and need to share with the motorists on road safety (Ogden, 1996). Cases of childhood pedestrian injuries have been an issue that needs to be looked into since the children are the ones who will make the generation to come (Quinn, 2004). The purpose of this study is to look for ways that can help reduce childhood pedestrian injuries. It also shows the data analysis on the issue and also addresses the significance of the study.
The right of walking safely is, above all, a fundamental issue to the young children in society; yet each year, there are more than 700 children die as a result of injuries obtained while walking along the streets with the majority of cases about 500 being caused by traffic (Evans, 1991). Nevertheless, for more than a decade now, there has been a decline in the fatality rate due to improvements in emergency and pre-hospital emergency medical care (Smiley, 2000). The decline can also be attributed to a reduction of walking as a way of transportation (Mercy, 2012). Advocates, together with the government, have been working on ways of reducing childhood pedestrian injuries in the nation (Zeitler, 1997). Experts in public health, school safety, motor vehicle safety, engineers and child development worked on the problem tirelessly with each of them taking a different approach based on their specialty (Parker, 2007). Nevertheless, child pedestrian safety is a complex problem in society making all these approaches limited to providing a solution to the problem within one day (Koornstra, 2002).
Once the problem concerning childhood pedestrian safety has been identified as an issue affecting society, implementation solution plans should be incorporated immediately and it will make the streets easily accessible by children and safer for them together with other pedestrians (Goodin, 2002). The following are some of the ways in which childhood pedestrian problems can be reduced: educating all roadway users concerning the responsibilities, rules and rights; upholding physical and walking activity in the entire community; implementing appropriate behaviors among road users and the facilities used on everyday occasion; engineering and designing roadways that can be easily accessible and are safe for pedestrians and lastly formulation of long and short term planning together with policies for the roads (Burrough, 2012). Other ways include: upholding a campaign for safe driving whereby careful driving is promoted for all those who use roads, expanding school busing to minimize the chances of children walking the roads to schools and offering traffic warnings and tickets in areas that are highly populated since they are the once at high risk of childhood pedestrian injuries (Del Valle, 1992).
The main significance of this study is to address some of the ways in which childhood pedestrian safety can be reduced in society to minimize the number of lives lost on the roads each year as a result of traffic (Minkler, 2004). This study creates awareness of the importance of maintaining road safety (Richardson, 2000). It is however the initiative of both the government and the citizens to take responsibility for their lives by following all the road safety rules to help minimize the cases of childhood pedestrian injuries (Murray & Lopez, 2006).
References
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Del Valle, A. (1992). Innovative planning for development: An action-oriented approach. Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania.
Evans, L. (1991). Older drivers risk to themselves and to other road users. Journal of Transportation Research Record, 1325(7), 34-41.
Goodin, R. (2002). Apportioning Responsibilities: Ways of reducing Childhood Pedestrian Injuries. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Koornstra, W. (2002). Sunflower: A comparative study of the development of road safety in Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the Netherland. New York: Oxford University Press.
Mercy, M. (2012). Childhood pedestrian injuries: preventable tragedies. New York: Free Press.
Minkler, M. (2004). Ethical challenges for the “outside” researcher in community-based participatory research. Journal of Health Education & Behavior, 31(6), 684–697.
Murray, C. & Lopez, A. (2006). The global burden of disease: a comprehensive assessment of mortality and disability from diseases, injuries, and risk factors in 1990 and projected to 2020. Boston: Harvard University Press.
Ogden, K. (1996). Safer Roads: A guide to road safety engineering. New York: Ashgate Publishing Limited.
Parker, E. (2007). Ethical Issues in Health Promotion Research. Harvard: Harvard University Press.
Quinn, S. (2004). Protecting human subjects: The role of the community advisory boards. American Journal of Public Health, 94(6), 918–922.
Richardson, H. (2000). Childhood Pedestrian Injuries: Ways of Reduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Smiley, M. (2000). Moral Responsibility and the Boundaries of Community: Power and Accountability from a Pragmatic Point of View. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Wetmore, J. (2003). Systems of Restraint: Redistributing Responsibility for Automobile Safety in the U.S. Cornell: Cornell University Press.
Zeitler, U. (1997). Transport Ethics: An Ethical Analysis of the Impact of Passenger Transport on Human and Non-human Nature. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.