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2.6 Examples of peer education and road safety
There is little research on the use of peer education in road safety. RSS commissioned a feasibility study of JRSO24 schemes before setting up its own one but no longitudinal evaluations of the effectiveness of any JRSO schemes have been found. One of the few studies making any reference to peer education was an evaluation of Safer Routes to School 25, conducted for the Scottish Executive. This study found that peer education could have a role to play in some aspects of road safety:
Most informants recognised that children and young people should be involved in the development of Safer Routes To School initiatives and in the peer education of younger children. Young people themselves indicated that they prefer inter-active approaches to road safety education.
However, it should be borne in mind that peer pressure does not always act to make pupils more sensible and responsible. Recent research found that 26
The most negative influence that parents saw on their teenage children in relation to their road safety skills was that of their friends and peers, with 44% citing this. [Fewer] than one in twelve parents of teenage children (8%) indicated that "education" ( i.e. school related activities) had the most positive influence.
…….. a significant proportion of parents of teenagers suggested that it was when they were in the company of their friends and peers that their road safety behaviour was at its worst. This ranged from the increased tendency to be distracted and pre-occupied by the company of friends through to "horsing around" and on to "deliberately acting up in front of their friends".
Approaches to teaching road safety have been discussed in a number of reports prepared for RSS, and it has been recommended that road safety issues be tackled in the same way as other personal safety and health issues that might be covered by PSE. Given that the examples of successful peer education programmes given above (Section 2.2) are drawn from the field of Health Education, this suggests that peer education might usefully be adopted for road safety.
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