Death on the roads: Schools obstruct road safety measures

doi:10.1136/bmj.333.7560.200

BMJ 2006;333:200 (22 July), doi:10.1136/bmj.333.7560.200

Letter

Death on the roads

Schools obstruct road safety measures

The first 100% of the full text of this article appears below.

EDITOR—Gill et al discussed changes in safety on England'sroads.¹ Schools in Surrey seem to compete to have the most conservativeschool uniforms. Most require students to wear dark colouredouter clothing and explicitly ban brighter coloured outer clothing.This prevents students from following the universal guidanceto wear light, brightly coloured clothes to increase conspicuousnessand reduce their odds of adding to the pedestrian accident statistics.Many school governing bodies refuse to discuss the issue, simplydismissing as "inappropriate" advice from road safety officersand organisations and parents that they might permit more appropriateouter clothing.

We should be encouraging children to walk or cycle to school;and schools should help us by not creating unnecessary additionaldisincentives.

Peter M English, consultant in public health medicine

Leatherhead, Surrey KT22 9RX peter_english@bigfoot.com

Competing interests: PGE has children at school in Surrey.

Gill M, Goldacre MJ, Yeates DGR. Changes in safety on England's roads: analysis of hospital statistics. BMJ 2006;333: 73-5. (8 July.)[Abstract/Free Full Text]

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Changes in safety on England's roads: analysis of hospital statistics: Mike Gill, Michael J Goldacre, and David G R Yeates
BMJ 2006 333: 73. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]