The efficacy of road safety education in schools: a review of current approaches

Abstract

This report provides an overview of current road safety education (RSE) programs for school students that are currently in use in Australia and overseas with the primary aims of commenting on the effectiveness of current approaches, and to identify any gaps in the provision of RSE. To this end the report was necessarily restricted to the inclusion of RSE programs that have been evaluated or that are comparable with similar programs that had. RSE programs were categorised according to the five primary strategies adopted: indirect or holistic approaches, one-time interventions, driver training, curriculum-based, and multi-modal approaches. The lack of well-designed evaluations makes commenting on the short- and long-term efficacy of RSE programs problematic, however the report makes use of evidence from a variety of sources to facilitate an informed discussion. The effectiveness of current road safety educational programs remains largely undetermined as there is little evidence showing that RSE either does or does not work, although programs addressing the general causes of risk taking behaviour are showing some promise. In general current approaches do not appear to cause harm, unless they promote early licensing, and there would be expected to be an inherent value in passing on road safety knowledge. Suggestions for improvements and future directions for RSE are also offered.