Children are especially vulnerable in pedestrian accidents, and they often lack the skills and maturity needed to better protect themselves. Teaching your children pedestrian safety – and modeling this behavior – is the best way to raise safer pedestrians.
Your kids will soon be going back to school and, with the pandemic we find ourselves living through, this could mean attending school in the classroom full-time, attending school in the classroom and from home, or attending school from home full-time. Regardless of what your family’s new normal is, now is a good time to review pedestrian safety with your children, who are extremely susceptible to serious injuries in pedestrian accidents. If a motorist leaves your child injured in a pedestrian accident, you need an experienced San Francisco personal injury lawyer in your corner.
Walking Safely
Whether your children are walking to school, to a friend’s home, to a playground, or anywhere else, the following safety tips shared by Safe Kids Worldwide apply:
- Children should always look left, right, and then left again before proceeding to cross the street. Further, they should keep an eye out for traffic as they continue across.
- When children are crossing the street, they should focus on that task and put their phones, electronic devices, and headphones away. It’s important to remember that paying attention to the traffic all around you and listening to the sounds of traffic, which can be indicative of danger, is always the safest strategy. Being plugged into a device is never a good idea when a child (or anyone) is on foot.
- Children should only cross the street from street corner to street corner in well-marked crosswalks whenever possible – obeying all traffic signals and signs. If your children’s school employs crossing guards, they should make their crossings at those intersections whenever possible.
- Children should always walk on pedestrian walkways or overpasses, sidewalks, or walking paths whenever they are available. If there is no sidewalk, children should learn to walk as far to the road’s left as possible (facing oncoming traffic).
- Children who are under the age of 10 should not cross the street without an adult. While some 10-year-olds may be equipped to carefully cross on their own steam, this by no means applies to all children in this age group. Young children have a difficult time accurately assessing the speed of oncoming traffic – and the distance between oncoming traffic and themselves – and this leaves them especially vulnerable to dangerous pedestrian accidents.
As a parent, always be a good role model and observe all the rules related to pedestrian safety, including staying off your devices. By teaching your children how to stay safe out there, you can help protect them – and yourself – into the future.
An Experienced San Francisco Personal Injury Lawyer Can Help
If your child’s been injured in a pedestrian accident, the dedicated personal injury lawyers at The Cartwright Law Firm, Inc., in San Francisco are committed to fighting for the compensation necessary for your child to reach his or her fullest physical and emotional recovery. Cases involving children are the most pressing, so please don’t hesitate to contact or call us at (415) 851-6486 today.
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