Where there’s no green man: child road-safety education in Ethiopia

Overview

Traffic crashes kill 1.2 million people annually, and the number is growing fast, particularly in developing countries. Although child road-safety education is widely considered important, few programmes have resulted in demonstrated improvements in safety. We review road-safety education in Ethiopia and conclude that it is often locally inappropriate and impractical. Such programmes are frequently based on dominant but ineffective educational models imported from other contexts. Drawing on our experience of establishing a community-managed child road-safety education programme in Ethiopia, we suggest how road-safety education in developing countries might become more effective.