What’s What Wednesday: Road Safety

Written by Diana Salazar. Posted in Blog, Talking to your Children about Safety

When used correctly, wearing a seat belt reduces the risk of fatal injury to front seat passenger by 45%. For those riding in the rear of vans and sport-utility vehicles (SUVs) during a car crash, rear seat belts are 73% better at preventing fatalities.  Also, children are likely to wear a seat belt 92% of the time when adults in the car use seat belts, as opposed to 72% of the time when adults are not using them.

Children learn by example, they watch our actions and when it comes to safety, we are the perfect role models.  Today, Sunshine State Counseling Center has listed five parental behaviors to enforce road safety by role modeling:

1. Wearing seat belts while driving a car
2. Remain calm when driving and never yell or shout at pedestrians or other drivers.
3. Follow and explain to your child traffic signals and signs.
4. Emphasize the do’s and don’t s of traffic rules while driving.
5. Reward your child when he/she chooses to follow behaviors consistent with road safety.