Raising road safety awareness among school children

Deeply committed to making roads less dangerous, the Michelin Corporate Foundation has decided to undertake actions to improve the safety of children on their journeys to and from school. One major concern is the peak in pedestrian accidents among 11-year-olds when they enter middle school.

The Foundation was especially attracted by a project entitled ‘On the road, my brain is my buddy’, because the project has created synergies between two complementary organizations that the Foundation already supports.

• On the one hand, the association Prévention Routière is known for its widescale national campaigns and for outreach activities towards all road users, especially children, creating awareness from the earliest age of correct behaviors when faced with the hazards of the road.
• On the other, the foundation La main à la pâte is considered a leading player by the French Ministry of Education for the support it gives to teachers in elementary and middle schools in making science education more fun and easier to understand.

With the backing of the Michelin Corporate Foundation and the expert skills of the association Prévention Routière, La main à la pâte has developed an entire and innovative teaching kit designed to make 4th, 5th and 6th grades pupils better aware of risks on the roads. Its originality comes from scientific experimentation in the areas of perception, attentiveness and inattentional blindness. These phenomena are handled in class by teachers who have at their disposal a range of teaching aids such as self-tutoring courses, fact sheets and visual supporting materials, all available online. It is an effective way of creating awareness and acquiring the right behaviors in the children’s daily journeys.

The scheme was tested in 2020 despite the Covid-19 health crisis and since the first trimester 2021, is available on the La main à la pâte website using the e‑learning platform L@map. It is totally free to use. The aim is to roll out the program to between 1000 and 2000 teachers a year. An introductory webinar will also be created by the association Prévention Routière for the use of its teams with help from the Foundation La main à la pâte.

This fine joint initiative serves an essential cause, the safety of young people.