Aptus visits schools for Road Safety Week 2022

This Road Safety Week HSQE manager Delicia Maxwell and trainee HSQE advisor Jack Berry have been out and about visiting schools, raising awareness of road safety and distributing our hi-vis tops.

Each year Aptus launches its School Road Safety campaign to coincide with Road Safety Week – which is organised by BRAKE Charity and aims to bring communities together in campaigning for safe roads for everyone.

Delicia and Jack visited primary schools in Cumbria and Yorkshire where they talked to children about the extra dangers to look out for in winter and reminded them of the green cross code. The children also designed their own ‘safe roads’ using a range of props.

At the end of the session, they were presented with bright yellow hi-vis tops to wear! The tops bear our motto ‘Bright Sparks Get Seen In the Dark’ and have reflective stripes which light up under street and car lights and help the children stand out in the dark.

Every day six children are killed or seriously injured on UK roads with devastating consequences for families and communities, so continuing to raise awareness and educate children on ways to keep safe is vital.

Since our campaign launched in 2014 we have donated over 4,000 tops and reached thousands of schoolchildren with the road safety message.

In 2021 we launched a competition for the children to design a poster which highlighted road safety. We loved the winning design, which was created by a pupil at Dent Primary School in Cumbria. The colourful poster featured lots of the key themes covered by our road safety presentation, and we have used it to promote our campaign in 2022.

Alongside our school campaign we ran an internal initiative to promote safe driving and remind our colleagues of the vehicle checks and extra steps they can take to keep safe on the roads in winter. As part of this we shared a road safety quiz to test how much people know about changes to the Highway Code introduced in January, which give more protection to vulnerable road users. You can get up to date with the new rules here.

To get involved with Road Safety Week in 2023, visit www.brake.org.uk/RSW.

Published on 18th November 2022