Road Safety Authority campaign should target drivers, not child pedestriansThe Green Party has called on the Road Safety Authority to rethink their 'Back to School Campaign' due to a message which identifies children as the road safety problem. The campaign, which implies that pedestrians are to blame and does not address the role of driver behaviour in improving safety, threatens to undermine efforts to get more people out walking.Ciarán Cuffe, a city councillor and chair of Dublin City's Transportation Committee, said today: “This campaign is like something from the 1970s. It is a dated and flawed approach that fails to put the emphasis on drivers to slow down, have due regard for other road users and look out for children on the roads."At a time of a childhood obesity epidemic the RSA should be encouraging more children to walk and play outside instead of scaremongering about their safety. Children are the victims not the culprits, and this campaign should be about encouraging drivers to slow down and look out for them; they should also be encouraging local authorities to reduce speed limits outside schools and in residential areas. In other countries, such as Denmark, the national law assumes driver responsibility in a crash involving a child pedestrian (i.e. places the burden of proof on the driver). Here we're letting car drivers off the hook."Even Minister Donohoe appears to be toeing the RSA line of victimising pedestrians rather than suggesting that drivers slow down. He should know better. This campaign will scare child pedestrians off the roads rather than encouraging them and does nothing to target dangerous driver behaviour. On RTE's News at One, Moyagh Murdoch the CEO of the RSA seemed to suggest that there was a downside to this summer's good weather which saw children outside playing. Her organisation should be encouraging drivers to exercise greater vigilance when the sun is shining and children are out at play."The RSA need to tackle driver behaviour such as speeding, alcohol/drugs impairment fatigue and unsafe behaviour towards pedestrians. Instead of victimising children the RSA should also be seeking more low speed zones and pedestrian crossings. According to the RSA's own research such zones have been successfully implemented in residential areas, and around schools elsewhere in Europe, with reductions in serious collisions by up to 70%*."The RSA must reconsider this campaign as it is sending out the wrong message and blames the victims.”* p. 15 http://www.rsa.ie/Documents/Road%20Safety/Leaflets/Leaf_booklets/pedestrian_safety_actionplan.pdfLast updated 27Aug14