A survey of public school parents in the Australian Capital Territory has highlighted serious concerns about traffic safety around schools in the ACT. An article in the Canberra Times quotes the key findings of the survey conducted by the ACT Council of Parents and Citizens Associations which is based on the feedback of more than 1100 parents from 73 of the ACT's 86 schools, who opted in to the survey.

These survey results serve to highlight the breadth of serious issues that schools must contend with in their day-to-day operations.

Key findings

The survey found that:

• more than two thirds of parents surveyed had witnessed an accident or near miss around their school, with 14 per cent of respondents reporting this happened often;
• a similar number said their school car parks and drop-off areas were unsafe, while a fifth thought roads around their school were very unsafe; and
• more than 70 per cent of parents had found parking at their school difficult which had, in some cases, deterred them from attending school events and volunteering.

Generally, the parents noted problems with dangerous driving, high traffic volumes, misuse of pick-up and drop-off zones and school crossings and problems parking.

Suggestions to fix these problems included more parking, improvements to school crossings or new crossings, more pull-off bays, greater supervision and tougher enforcement of speed limits and parking restrictions.

Who is responsible for traffic safety?

Traffic safety near schools is an issue that affects all schools and each year there are reports of children being seriously injured or killed while traveling to or from school. Although various members of the community are jointly responsible for the management of child safety risks associated with road safety and traffic management around schools, including the Police and local councils, schools also play an important role in educating students on how to be safe.

As schools will know, their duty of care does not stop at the school’s boundary fences. Student duty of care is not defined by location or time – it extends well beyond this to situations where students are engaging in school-related activities. This includes travelling to, and from school, especially on public transport. This means that schools can be responsible for the safety of students who are getting on and off buses, and in and out of cars.

As a start, appropriate supervision is necessary. This does not mean a stand-alone traffic supervision policy, but rather that supervision must be adequate to ensure that students are safe before and after school, and at public transport stations and stops.

School traffic management

Authorities in each State and Territory provide useful resources for school communities on road safety around schools. For example, the WA Local Council Authority and VicRoads. In addition to educating themselves on how to improve the safety of children traveling to and from school, schools have a responsibility to ensure that all members of the school community understand how they can ensure student road safety.

According to VicRoads, ‘parents or carers are the key to changing the way children travel to school and making drop-off [and] pick-up times safer’. Schools should consider holding regular road safety briefing nights for the school community to ensure all members understand their individual obligations towards protecting students’.

Complicated traffic situations require complex decisions, and where schools face risks from drivers and parents, they should seek expert advice in order to avoid a serious accident.

And as an independent boys school in Sydney discovered recently, the driving practices of its parents and carers are not just important to ensuring the safety of students. They can also influence a schools’ business interests – such as the expansion of school premises. The decision of that school’s local council to reject its planning application was reportedly due to the ‘uncontrollable unsafe behaviour’ of its parents at drop-off/pick-up times. The increased safety risk associated with adding new premises to the school was directly linked to the dangerous driving which occurred at the school’s existing premises, and which resulted in the application being denied.