Road Safety Week 2025 and Your School Travel Plan

‘Safe Vehicles Save Lives’ is the message this year from Brake who organise Road Safety Week across the UK. Vehicle safety is a key component of the ‘Safe Systems’ approach towards achieving zero casualties on our roads.

As active travel advocates we want to encourage and enable more walking, wheeling, cycling and scooting for everyday journeys. Safer roads and the perception of safer roads is an important requirement for giving more people the confidence to choose active modes of travel. The lack of feeling safe is a big barrier to active travel.

Whilst having zero motor vehicles on our roads would be the fastest way of achieving zero casualties, the reality is we all use and need cars, vans and lorries in our lives - even if we don’t drive them ourselves. Clearly we need safe drivers but part of that is having safe vehicles too.

How ‘Safer Vehicles’ Can Fit into Your School Travel Plan

Schools and school pupils can be great messengers to  parents and other adults in children’s lives on how to have safe vehicles. Whether it is about vehicle maintenance, adapting to changing weather or making sure reaction actions have a fast enough result there are some reminders it is always good to share and not just for  road safety week.

If you are doing looking for ways to encompass ‘road safety’ in your school travel plan consider focusing on promoting one of these activities as a  stand-alone initiative. 

Presenting just one vehicle safety action gives a practical bite-size focus on how your audience can boost safety without being overwhelmed. For adults they can take action encouraged by their children to do so. For children they can observe what the adults do and prompt them to take positive actions or avoid negative ones, as well as taking the messages with them as they grow into adults too.

Five Vehicle Safety Actions and Reminders

1. Tyre Tread - You can use a 20p coin to check your car tyres are the right depth. Simply place a 20p coin into the main tread grooves of your tyre. If the outer band of the 20p coin is obscured when it is inserted, then your tread is above the legal limit. If the outer band of the coin is visible, then your tyres may be illegal and unsafe and should be checked immediately by a qualified tyre professional. When taking the test, remember to check at least three locations around each tyre. As the test is so quick and easy, stay safe by checking your tyres at least once a month.  Visit https://www.tyresafe.org/the-checks/tread-depth/20p-test/ for more info. 
2. Clear Your Windscreen - As we are well into autumn, your windscreen is more likely to be fogged up before you set off on a drive. This  makes it much harder to see, especially as you pull away. Clearing your screen before you go may take a few moments but could save a life. As the weather gets colder, making sure you allow time to scrap your windscreens is important for the whole journey and will enable you to react faster.
3. Car Seats and Seatbelts - since the laws around car seats for children and seatbelts for all passengers came in they have saved thousands of lives. For younger children make sure they have the right size car seat or booster seat. You can find more info here: https://www.gov.uk/child-car-seats-the-rules. For older children and adults, ensuring they wear their seatbelts is a legal responsibility of the driver and a message that needs to be clear.
4. Switch Off - an anti-idling campaign to encourage parents waiting outside school in their cars helps raise awareness of the need to ‘switch off’. Although not obviously related to road casualties in the usual sense, nearly 40,000 people a year in the UK are killed by poor air quality and vehicle emissions is one of the big sources. Find out more about air quality campaigns and action ideas here hps://www.actionforcleanair.org.uk/campaigns/clean-air-day
5. Cycles and Scooters too - although motor vehicles are the biggest focus here, don’t forget the safety of your active travel ‘vehicles’ too. Cycles and scooters need to be well-maintained to keep you and others safe too. Check out our cycle maintenance tips here.

Road Safety Week is an annual event every November. For more info and downloadable resources visit the Brake website.

The theme for action is different every year. By having a special week with a particular focus it draws attention and increases understanding of the measures we can take any day of the year to make our streets safer for everyone.

Here at Brightwayz social enterprise we love to provide information and tips to help you, your colleagues, friends and family travel in safe, active, sustainable ways for everyday journeys.

Our unique range of products is here to help support your active travel campaigns and 100% of profits from sales is ploughed back to support the work we do. Take a look at our range here and find something to help you inspire others to travel in good ways.