Aberdeen City Council has introduced the 'pupil trail' to comply with the Scottish Executive's recently-introduced Child Road Accident Reduction Targets, which aim to reduce accidents by 50 per cent by 2010. Four routes now lead from peripheral streets to the school entrances. Coloured squares or circles have been laid on the surface of the footpaths, with the start of each route identified by either a coloured square or a circle mounted on a post.
As well as creating a safer environment for children to walk to school, the routes mean that children travelling by car can be dropped off at the starting point of one of the paths and collected at the same place, reducing traffic congestion around the school itself.
Nursery pupils are not expected to follow the system by themselves but they are making good use of the paths. Tracey Colville, who walks to school with her four-year-old son, Keiran, said, 'We use it as a plaything, looking for the next dot.'
Nursery teacher Sandra Macpherson has introduced the paths to her whole class. 'We have taken the children out to look at the dots and plan to establish walks later on,' she said. 'Just now, the children simply enjoy playing games with them - spotting the next one, counting them, noticing the colours and the shapes.'
* The Scottish Executive announced last week that it would make 810,000 available to local authorities over the next six years to help children aged five to seven become more aware of practical road safety. Transport minister Sarah Boyack said, 'Since the early 1980s the number of child pedestrians killed or seriously insured has more than halved, but the Scottish death rate is still almost double the overall UK figure, and poorer children are more at risk.'
The funding will build on the work of the Executive-backed Children's Traffic Club for three-and four-year-olds.
