Road Safety for Back to School

As thousands of Mississauga families prepare for Back to School and get back into the routine of walking, biking, driving or waiting at bus stop to get to and from school. It seems there is a yearly tragedy. 

One of my biggest pet peeves as a parent is the driver who stops and waives a child across the street. They are being nice, and thoughtful right? Well no, actually this driver is potentially exposing that child to grave danger. 

We teach our children to stop and look both ways to make sure the road is safe before we cross the street for a reason! Drivers who stop in the middle of the road to wave a child across are creating confusion and exposing the kids to real danger. 

Children are small, and as they run across the street they can be missed by drivers on the other side of the road who don't see them coming. 

Kids often don't also know the importance of making eye contact with a driver, so later on when they see a car stopped (maybe another parent is letting their own child out of the car and isn't looking) the child may assume its safe to run across the street - to a tragic consequence. 

Let's all be safe on the roads and do our part by teaching and following proper road safety rules!  Have a safe first week back to school!