By JESSE GRAHAM
PARENTS are being asked to be on their best behaviour when driving around children, as part of a TAC campaign to stop young drivers taking on bad habits.
Earlier this month, the Traffic Accident Commission (TAC) launched its new Parent Role Modelling campaign, which puts the onus on parents of primary school-aged children to be better teachers for their kids.
According to TAC Road Safety Project co-ordinator Samantha Buckis, the campaign centres on research that shows children pick up parents’ bad driving behaviours from a young age.
“It’s important that parents are considering what they’re doing behind the wheel, and making sure that every drive is a good example,” Ms Buckis said.
“We would like to encourage parents to stick to the road laws – it’s as simple as that.
“It’s not using your phone while driving, it’s sticking to the speed limit, obviously not drinking and driving – we know these are the behaviours that kids easily pick up and you may not even realise that they’re taking notice of what you’re doing and learning those behaviours for later on.”
The campaign features a new television advertisement, where a child in a car seat mimics driving actions, before picking up a phone while pretending to drive.
The child, whose arms are linked to their father’s in front by puppet-like strings, then makes road-rage gestures and checks their phone again, in unison with their parent driving.
The simple question at the root of the campaign is then asked – what sort of driver are you raising?
Ms Buckis said young drivers made up 12-14 per cent of all licensed drivers, but roughly 25 per cent of deaths and injuries on the road.
“Even though the numbers are coming down, there’s more that we can do, and parents play a key role in that,” she said.
“Research clearly shows that kids are watching what you do and they are learning what you do – it’s so important that parents remember this in many aspects of their lives, but including when they’re behind the wheel.”
The provisional road toll as of Monday 20 April, is 85 – three more deaths than the same time last year.
In the last two weeks, two young drivers have died on Yarra Ranges roads – a 21-year-old Upper Yarra man in a Launching Place rollover and an 18-year-old Cockatoo woman in a single-car crash in Yellingbo.
What do you think of the new TAC campaign? Do you think that parents are setting bad examples for their children? Write a letter to the editor at editor@mailnewsgroup.com.au or to PO Box 470, Healesville, Victoria, 3777.
