11 Aug 2014

The Motor Vehicle Accident (MVA) fund has introduced mobile service called the Mobile Children Traffic School in 2011 with the intention to promote road safety and to bring other services closer to school going children aged between six and 18 years.

Speaking in an interview, the MVA fund public education officer, Ms Gugulethu Bechwa explained that since the introduction of the initiative, there was a clear indication that there had been an improvement on how school going children use road from all the areas they had managed to reach.

Ms Bechwa said that they were targeting places which were far away from their services. “In our school we have two parts, which are the theory part as part one and the practical part as part two,” she stated.

Ms Bechwa added that for the theory part, they teach children the road signs, noting that for the practical part they make a road set up and give children a chance to demonstrate by driving motorbikes through it.

She continued that they had reached different places through organised road shows, bookings as well as taking advantage of large gatherings such as agricultural shows, competitions and other promotions.

She added that they managed to cover places like Gantsi, Khawa, Maunatlala, Ramokgonami and Sefhare among others.

Ms Bechwa also pointed out that the way children show more interest in learning how to use the road indicates that they would be responsible road users in the near future.

“Parents should also assist us by always monitoring how their children utilise roads,” she urged. She further encouraged teachers to lead the formations of school road safety clubs.

“If we all join our hands in promoting road safety from the grass roots level, we will be having a decline in road accidents in the next coming years,” she said. Ends