Road Safety

The Kerkrade Children's Council consists of representation from all primary schools and from Kinderopvang Parkstad in the municipality of Kerkrade. The representation is elected per school. These council members then elect their mayor from one of the council members. 

In the children's council, pupils in grades 7 and 8 from all elementary school and from Kinderopvang Parkstad in the municipality of Kerkrade are allowed to discuss and contribute ideas about the municipality's policies. Especially on those topics that are directly related to the children. Ultimately, the children's council can also give advice. They themselves determine the topics to be discussed.
 

Rationale and approach

The Children's Council discussed road safety at the council meeting on Feb. 1, 2023. The topic was still chosen by the previous Children's Council. This was one of the topics from the top 3 topics of the previous Children's Council.  

Previous children's council

In 2022, the previous Children's Council chose the topic of traffic safety as one of three topics they would like to discuss. Then the Children's Council received an explanation from the traffic expert official of the municipality of Kerkrade. The Children's Council members were given a map of their own school. The assignment was to discuss the map in their own class or school, indicating tips or dangerous traffic situations on the map.

The maps were then discussed at a children's council meeting in May 2022. A few arrangements were also made with the council at that time to address a few situations and tips directly. There was not enough information at that time to make a recommendation. The Children's Council did consider a behavioral campaign aimed at parents at that time.
The topic was saved for another Children's Council meeting. 

Review of working visit Feb. 1, 2023

To learn more about traffic safety, the new Children's Council visited location elementary school de Veldhof, in Eygelshoven (the future Integral Child Center - IKC).

The group was divided into two groups. One group went outside to look at different traffic situations in the neighborhood on the street and ask questions about them. The children were also able to give tips to municipality employees. These employees are working on the plans to redesign the school environment of the new school. They also already had ideas about the new layout and made a drawing of this. This drawing was discussed with the children.

The other group engaged in conversation with the police officers of the municipality of Kerkrade. The boas carry out a schools project. They make extra checks in the vicinity of schools. The officers told the children what they experience and asked the children if they recognize it.  

Conclusions

The Children's Council has contributed ideas about a traffic-safe school environment for the newly built Integral Child Center Droomhof in Eygelshoven. The drawing with the children's tips was given to the municipality of Kerkrade to use for the plans they will make. The drawing is attached on the last page of this advice.

In general, it can be said that the children think it is important that the design of school environments should be recognizable and clear to everyone. So all road users, including people who do not know, for example, that there is a school building in that neighborhood. They should be able to see it easily because of the traffic situation. This can be done by using special bollards and putting the text school zone on the road. Using pictures like the one below, children were asked if they knew the bollards. Half of Children's Council recognized the bollards, the other half did not. So this could be improved. The possibility of temporarily closing the street during the start and end of the school day was also discussed.

Two examples of brightly colored Julie street furniture: a pole with a stop-toning hand on it and fences at a crosswalk

Advice and recommendations

The Children's Council advises:

Involve local children in designing a traffic-safe school environment.

Recommendations

Children who know the area around the school well are also good at thinking about the design of the school environment and pointing out dangerous spots. Therefore, choose children of different ages. 

School zones at all (elementary) schools should look the same as much as possible so that all road users recognize these zones.

Recommendations

  • Use the same colored posts and road markings "school zone" everywhere.
  • Inform citizens of the significance of the posts. 
  • Have the Public Order and Safety Department of the municipality of Kerkrade (that is where the BOAs work, among other things) give an opinion on the use of traffic brigadiers and have this opinion sent to the schools. 
     

Establish a recurring behavior campaign aimed at children and parents to convey the rules and desirable behavior around schools.

Recommendations

  • Every school should have clear rules, preferably as many of the same rules as possible. 
  • Target the campaign to children and their parents.
  •  Involve children in devising a campaign. 
  • Involve schools in devising and implementing the campaign.  
     

Communications

The advice will be presented to the municipal executive and the municipal council of Kerkrade.
The advice will also be presented to the cluster consultations of directors of the Kerkrade schools of Movare, Kinderopvang Parkstad, the urban management department and communications department of the municipality.

Implementation

The Children's Council would like to be notified in early 2024 with the status of the project. 


This opinion was adopted by the Children's Council at its March 29, 2023 meeting.


Madée Buck
Children's Mayor