A traffic safety park for children opened yesterday at the Youth Park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華) to teach children about traffic safety issues.
Deputy Minister of Transportation and Communications Chi Wen-chung (祁文中) and Taipei Department of Transportation Director Chen Hsueh-tai (陳學台) said the establishment of the park is an important step toward preventing traffic-related deaths and injuries among children.
Aimed at children aged six to 12, the park employs a series of games focused on safety issues, the ministry said.
Photo: CNA
Teachers can guide students in playing the games, which are designed to raise awareness of personal safety around roadways and motor vehicles, it said.
The park is divided into seven learning zones: road signs and crossings — for which there are two zones each, safe waiting practices, traffic blind spots, and alleys and other narrow roadways.
It aims to teach children safe ways to cross the road, such as using crosswalks, pushing buttons for signals where they exist, and wearing bright or reflective clothing or accessories, the ministry said, adding that it would review the park’s teaching materials to determine their effectiveness.
About 60 percent of traffic accidents occur at crossings, and among those involving children 12 years old or younger, about 14 percent were due to a motor vehicle striking and killing the child, the ministry said.
The ministry plans to introduce measures between next year and 2022 to improve traffic safety, it said.
These include installing more button-activated crossing signals near schools and distributing short films on traffic education to elementary schools, alongside a proposal requiring schools to show a minimum of four hours of safety videos in class per academic year, it said.
Aside from referencing practices in Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong, ministry representatives spoke with schools in Taipei, Kaohsiung, Tainan and Miaoli to develop ideas for traffic safety parks, it said.
One park opened next to Kaohsiung’s National Science and Technology Museum, which held 236 sessions during its trial run from Sept. 1 to Nov. 15, it said.
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