Keep Eyes Alert - Safety on the Streets

Initiative details

Distraction is the cause of one third of all accidents in Austria. The perennial guiding theme of the Province of Styria / Traffic Department entitled "Keep Eyes Alert on the Road" is directed at all road users and aims to draw attention to the risk of distraction in road traffic.
We, the association GROSSE SCHÜTZEN KLEINE, have now developed special projects for children with the aim:
*to inform children on how important attention or how dangerous distraction can be in road traffic.
*to create awareness that no one can always be one hundred percent attentive.
*to help children to also recognize whether the other road user is attentive and, in an emergency, can prevent an accident with their own attention.

Initiative date

to

Who was/is your target audience?

Children 0-16
Parents
Educational staff

Topic

Create awareness
Education in school or in community organizations

Organisation details

GROSSE SCHUETZEN KLEINE / Safe Kids Austria
Association
Austria
Graz / Styria

Contact name

Peter SPITZER, Elisabeth FANNINGER

Telephone number

+4331638513764

Project activities

If you work together with external partners, list the most important partners and briefly describe their role.

Financial support for these projects is provided by the Province of Styria / Transport Department. As part of their long-standing focus on "Keep Eyes Alert on the Road" (Link: Augen auf die Straße - Augen auf die Straße - Land Steiermark (www.augen-auf-die-strasse.at), it is possible to apply for financial support for suitable projects.
The Styrian Directorate of Education and the Styrian University of Teacher Education also play an important role, as teachers can be informed about and trained in these projects via further education.

Please describe the project activities you carried/are carrying out and the time period over which these were implemented.

The basis for the projects of GROSSE SCHÜTZEN KLEINE are accident analyses in the Research Center for Child Accidents at the University Clinic for Pediatric and Adolescent Surgery Graz.
Project 1: Distraction as accident factor number 1. focus report 2021 (
Link: https://grosse-schuetzen-kleine.at/publikationen/ablenkung-als-unfallfaktor-nummer-1-fokusreport-2021/

Project 2: Accident occurrence with bus & streetcar. Focus report 2022
Link: https://grosse-schuetzen-kleine.at/publikationen/das-unfallgeschehen-mit-bus-bim-fokusreport-2022/


Project 1: Keep Eyes and Ears Alert - Safety on the Streets
Timeframe: Development fall 2020 and spring 2021
Press conference: May 2021
Implementation: from May 2021 until today
Project target group: Pupils: 7 to 12 years old
Distribution target group: teachers, traffic education teachers
Distribution: Province of Styria - Traffic, Directorate of Education Styria - Schools, Pedagogical University - Teacher Training and Teacher Continuing Education.
Project contents: Visual attention - check of traffic situations / Acoustic attention - recognize and differentiate traffic sounds / Multitasking challenge - text comprehension and skill course.
Project documents: project manual with subject information and project information, PPT with integrated hyperlinks for implementation in the classroom
Project link: https://grosse-schuetzen-kleine.at/projekte/verkehrserziehungsprojekt-augen-auf-die-strasse-fertig-los/ and https://grosse-schuetzen-kleine.at/augen-auf-die-strasse-fertig-los/

Project 2: Keep Eyes Alert - Sure-footed on the Road
Timeframe: development fall 2021 and spring 2022
Press conference: March 2022
Implementation: from March 2022 until today
Project target group: Pupils 7 to 12 years old
Distribution target group: teachers, traffic education teachers
Distribution: province of Styria - traffic, education directorate of Styria - schools, pedagogical university - teacher training and teacher further education
Project contents: Body control and sure-footed locomotion in road traffic as pedestrian and with scooter and bicycle.
Project link: https://grosse-schuetzen-kleine.at/augen-auf-die-strasse-trittsicher-unterwegs/


Evaluation

What has been the effect of the activities?

The project documents and videos were made available to all Styrian teachers in grades 1-6 via the Education Directorate. All interested teachers (from the entire German-speaking area) can download the contents at www.grosse-schuetzen-kleine.at/e-learning.
Number of hits on the project pages of GROSSE SCHÜTZEN KLEINE so far: approx. 1,000
Accesses directly via youTube so far: approx. 1,500


Number of teachers, who have ordered the materials: 130
Number of pupils reached: 3,000
Number of schools participating: 65 (approx. 10% of primary and secondary schools in Styria)

Please briefly explain why your initiative is a good example of improving road safety.

The target of the projects is to focus attention on road traffic, avoid distraction, and behave passively and forgivingly when other road users make "mistakes".

How have you shared information about your project and its results?

GROSSE SCHÜTZEN KLEINE / Safe Kids Austria is a member of D-A-CH, Eurosafe and Safe Kids Worldwide - all platforms that enable international exchange.
The project is basically aimed at the entire population.
In the sense of the snowball principle, the first "distribution" takes place via the Styrian schools (information to the schools by the education directorate, inclusion of the contents in the training and further education of the Pedagogical University and the annual ÖJRK conference) and depending on the creativity and interest of the participating pupils and teachers, it comes to the families - suggestions such as child-parent challenges etc. contribute to further dissemination. In addition, the content is also accessible online and, if possible and in relation to the content, is also transported and linked to other future projects or activities of GROSSE SCHÜTZEN KLEINE (Styrian Safe Children Communities, Safety Calendar 2022-23).