The City of Cape Town’s Junior Traffic Centre, sited at Hillstar Traffic Department, has received 25 new bicycles from the Syntell Foundation, which will be used to train children in pedal cycle safety.
The Junior Traffic Training Centre (JTTC) was launched in February 2008, and caters for Grade 1 – 3 learners, says Inspector Maxine Jordaan, City of Cape Town Traffic Services.
It aims to create road safety awareness in an intellectually stimulating environment and provides practical demonstrations to learners on how to cross a road safely, how to use pedestrian crossings and how to safely ride a bicycle.
The Centre is one of the projects supported by the traffic-safety technology company Syntell’s social responsibility Foundation. ‘Many crashes relating to pedestrians and pedal cyclists involve children,’ Julia Williamson, Syntell Foundation, ‘and we feel that these statistics can be reduced by means of increasing their basic road safety knowledge.
‘Schools do not offer road safety as a subject in the school curriculum and only the basic rules “ look right , look left , look right”,’ says Williamson. ‘Our goal, with the City of Cape Town, is to change this.
‘Children are exposed to a poor road safety environment on a daily basis, which they then interpret as being acceptable in society, without realising the consequences of such actions. It is this attitude and perception that children adopt, that we need to change. This can be achieved by offering an outcomes based programme to the children, where they have to demonstrate the principles of safe road behaviour after attending a road safety demonstration offered by the Traffic Officers.’
Approximately 10 000 children from 200 schools benefit from the Centre and its facilities each year. The Centre also provides programmes such as bicycle courses as well as learner’s licence programmes for Grade 12 learners.
Requests for training need to be made to the JTTC Inspector, by the school Principal of the school through to the JTTC Inspector. Training is free of charge.
For more information contact Inspector Maxine Jordaan, Traffic Services, City of Cape Town on 021 812 4571 or 072 621 0101.
