With increasingly busy lifestyles and more and more traffic on the roads, child road safety can sometimes be a fatally neglected issue - in 2003, 4,100 children were killed or seriously injured on the roads in Great Britain.

Teaching your child road safety is vital to them staying safe as they become more independent.

The risk of a child pedestrian being involved in a road accident rises significantly at the age when they start school and, up until the age of nine, most children cannot judge how fast vehicles are going or how far away they are.

Visit the Hedgehogs website at the following web link:

www.hedgehogs.gov.uk

Walking or cycling with your child to and from school is an excellent opportunity for you to teach your child these important road safety lessons.

Driving often seems like the easiest, safest and most convenient option for both adults and children. However, there are numerous health, social and environmental benefits of walking and cycling that are worth considering before you reach for the car keys.