Next week staff from North Wales Fire and Rescue Service will be supporting the UN Global Road Safety Week(4^th-10^th May 2015), and is asking for parents, teachers and other interested parties to submit questions for a series of online forums covering child road safety issues, which will be held on the Road Safety GB website during Global Road Safety Week (GRSW).

The four forums - covering children as pedestrians, as cyclists, travelling in cars, and how to set up and run a Junior Road Safety Officer scheme - will be held daily on Tuesday 7 - Friday 10 May inclusive, between 12 - 1pm.

They are free of charge and open to anyone who wishes to participate.

Questions can be submitted in advance or during the forum itself, for a panel of expert facilitators to answer in 'real time' during the forum.

Staff from across the region will also be visiting schools and other groups in their local areas next week to educate them of the dangers that are associated with
road users.

North Wales Fire and Rescue Service actively promotes road safety throughout the year with various programmes such as 'Deadly Mates'; an educational programme which visits schools across the region with their hard hitting presentation to highlight the tragic consequences of fatal road traffic collisions. The Service also has the 'Revolution' project which is also aimed at young drivers. This is a joint initiative with North Wales Police; offering a proactive approach to road safety education including a workshop that demonstrates a realistic road traffic collision scene and the measures taken to extricate a person from it.

Stuart Millington, Senior Fire Safety Manager, said: "We are taking part in this campaign to engage with people in their communities and to educate them about the importance of road safety. Throughout the week staff will be promoting key messages which include; let's look out for each other, aimed at children and young people, and don't let distraction lead to destruction, which focuses on young drivers and the impact they can have on pedestrians.

"Young people have a far higher risk of being killed or injured on our roads. They make up around 11% of Welsh driving licences but around a quarter of fatalities and serious injuries. In 2011 young drivers made up 37% of drivers involved in collisions who had alcohol in their system.

"The forums are part of a comprehensive suite of initiatives here in the UK in support of GRSW 2015, and I would urge everyone to participate in the forum as it could clarify a lot of misconceptions. Here's the link that you'll need if you would like to take part: http://www.roadsafetygb.org.uk/pages/roadsafetyweek/rsw-forums.html"