Spreading awareness about safety during roadblock

Alida Venter and Danny Cat were seen out and about in Vryheid last week to teach children at local schools about road safety. The festive season, which is fast approaching, normally results in more accidents on the road. Alida and Danny Cat collaborated with local Public Safety departments to spread awareness during a roadblock at the Junction on Friday. This specific awareness campaign focused on child passengers in vehicles, not wearing seatbelts or not in an age-appropriate car seat.
Alida says that 83% of children are not restrained in an age-appropriate child restraint. The NRTA was changed in 2015 and since then, all children from birth to the age of 12 years old or 1.5m tall must be in an age-appropriate child restraint.
“Children are also not allowed to be seated in a front seat with an active airbag,” she continued.
“Airbags are designed for people taller than 15m and in the case of a crash, an airbag deploys at 140km/h, which can cause serious injury to a young child or even death.
“An unrestrained child’s body travels at the same speed that the vehicle is travelling. Thus the reason those children are so vulnerable in the event of a crash. Up until the age of six, children are neuro-developmentally immature, which means they cannot assess dangers in the environment such as traffic and car speeds.
“The aim of engaging with road-users at this roadblock was to educate them on the dangers of not wearing seat belts and the urgent intervention of the use of child restraints,” she explained.

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The news provided to you in this link comes to you from the editorial staff of the Vryheid Herald, a sold newspaper distributed in the Vryheid area.