Kerby and Amber lead Road Safety Week
Last week marked another important event in our calendar – Road Safety Week. The annual event is Brake’s biggest road safety campaign, with more than 3,400 schools and organisations across the UK taking part this year.
VolkerHighways teamed up with local primary schools in Bath, Hertfordshire, Luton and London to educate children on how to stay safe on our roads.
We engaged with over 200 pupils from St Martin’s Garden School, Bath, through a whole school assembly where the children learnt the Green Cross Code from Kerby.
Following the assembly, the pupils, aged 4 to 10 years, were invited outdoors to explore some of the impressive machinery that plays a crucial role in keeping our communities safe. With the support of our supply chain partners, Wainwrights and Hooke Highways, we set up four interactive stations. The students engaged with our winter gritters, MEWP, planer, and traffic signals, gaining valuable insights into how each piece of equipment contributes to maintaining safety and efficiency.
At St Mary’s Church of England Junior School in Ware, Hertfordshire, over 240 pupils gathered for a school-wide road safety assembly to meet Amber the Traffic Light, our new road safety mascot. During the event, students learnt valuable lessons about the dangers surrounding our and how to stay safe.
It’s never too early to educate children on road safety, and so we were pleased to host an interactive road safety activity session for 45 two to four year old children, across two sessions, at Little Stars Pre-School in Luton. Here, the children met Amber, dressed up in high vis jackets and played with our miniature road safety signs, cones and traffic lights.
At each visit, the children took home a goodie bag containing a certificate, colouring in book, pencils, reflective keyring and water bottle.
Lastly, we supported VolkerFitzpatrick at St Luke’s C of E Primary School in Canning Town, London, close to the A13 River Lea Crossing refurbishment project, where Amber helped to deliver a whole school road safety assembly for 120 pupils.
Why do we support Road Safety Week?
Road safety isn’t just a topic we support one week of the year, it’s a campaign that we support every single day. 1,695 people died on UK roads in 2023 and 28,967 were seriously injured – a figure that is far too high. With a culture of ‘urgency’ in the UK, our highway workers are faced with increased risks every day.
To us, road safety week is about engaging with children at an early age to educate them on the risks associated with our roads and so, we are asking you, when you see warning signs of highway works, to slow down and to adhere to the reduced speed signage. When our workers go to work, they expect to return home safely at the end of each day, without compromise.
“Last week was a busy week for our teams as we delivered several road safety talks across various contracts. For a business like ours, where much of our work takes place on public highways, it's essential to ensure the safety of the communities we serve. Educating the younger generation about road hazards and how they can protect themselves is a key part of our commitment. Each road safety talk was tailored to the specific needs of the schools, taking into account local conditions and risks to ensure the message was relevant and impactful. We were especially excited to deliver collaborative assemblies with our supply chain and VolkerFitzpatrick, and we hope this marks the beginning of many more joint social value initiatives. Overall, it was a rewarding week filled with engaging activities and the opportunity to interact with some wonderfully well-behaved students. And, of course, we were thrilled to debut Amber! A huge thank you to all our teams for their dedication and hard work in organising these fantastic events.”
Cheryl Latreille Social Value Manager
