Play campaigners in the UK are calling for urgent action at the highest level of government to reduce the danger children face from traffic on residential roads.
Playing Out, a national charity set up to help parents close roads for play, has reported a rise in temporary road closures on residential streets as parents try to help children play outside safely.
Its co-director Alice Ferguson said: “Traffic danger is the number one reason children don’t play outside like they used to. We need to reclaim the space on children’s doorsteps. Children aren’t getting the physical exercise they need and their mental health is at breaking point.
“Playing Out is part of a growing movement of groups calling for urgent action on safer streets for children. We need government at the highest level to look at this urgently. We need to see rules of 20mph in all residential areas and we need to bring in planning law that considers children need to play outside.”
Simon Panrucker, a Bristol resident who says he lives on a “rat run”, has started working with neighbours to close one of his local streets intermittently to allow children to play outside.
“Cars speed along here and I’m nervous all the time that my kid is going to run out and get hit by a car,” he said.
The call for a reduction of traffic on residential streets follows several high-profile road incidents involving children. Two children died after a Land Rover crashed through a school fence in Wimbledon, south-west London, last week.
In Birmingham, families staged a protest after four people died, including two children, and four were seriously injured by motorists in separate incidents in a month.
Brake, the road safety charity, is calling for 20mph speed limits to be implemented around all schools in the UK.
In 2021, 11,580 children aged 15 or under were killed or injured on roads in the UK. The annual average over the past five years is 13,503.
Provisional figures for 2022 show 48 children died on roads in the UK, equivalent to one child almost every week.
Globally, road traffic accidents are the leading cause of death among children and young people aged five to 29.
