Alasdair promotes road safety drive with banner design
Schoolchild’s winning design promotes safer motoring in Edinburgh
Budding artist Alasdair McCorquodale is steering Edinburgh schoolchildren towards a safer future after winning a city-wide road safety competition.
As the Scottish government announced its commitment to making all residential areas 20mph zones to improve safety for cyclists, Alasdair is taking the lead with an eye-catching banner that will be displayed outside the capital’s schools.
Alasdair, aged seven, who attends Wardie Primary School in Edinburgh, came up with the winning design in a contest organised by webuyanycar.com and supported by road safety charity Brake, for a new banner urging drivers to slow down to 20mph or below to protect children.
More than 400 entries were received for the competition from Primary 1 and 2 children and now Alasdair’s drawing has been made into full-size banners to be displayed outside all of the city’s primary schools to drive the message home.
A judging panel including Edinburgh Lord Provost Donald Wilson gave up Alasdair’s creative efforts the thumbs up.
The Lord Provost, the Rt Hon Donald Wilson, then paid a visit to Alasdair’s school, Wardie Primary, to unveil the banner and congratulate the talented youngster in person.
The most recent road transport figures indicated there were 1,371 child casualties on roads in Edinburgh in 2011, including 10 deaths and 166 serious injuries. Of these, 31 serious injuries were pupils on their way to or from school.
As well as getting children to design banners, webuyanycar.com provided teachers with lesson plans and road safety resources, supporting them in demonstrating the importance of road safety to children studying in primary years 1 and 2.
The Lord Provost said: “Well done to Alasdair on his fantastic winning design and on playing his part in getting the road safety message across to Edinburgh drivers.
“Edinburgh’s Local Transport Strategy contains a commitment to make all residential streets 20mph, so I’m delighted to see our pilot project being adopted as a template for other local authorities to follow.
“Our goal is to make sure all users are safe from the risk of being killed or seriously injured on Edinburgh’s roads by 2020 and we will continue to work hard towards reaching this target.”
Delighted winning pupil Alasdair said: “I wanted to make my drawing colourful so drivers could see it easily and slow down.”
A webuyanycar.com spokesman said: “As the UK’s largest buyer of second hand cars, we take our responsibilities to road safety very seriously. Young children are particularly vulnerable when they walk to and from school, so this simple message to drivers is a great idea.”
Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
with road accidents so frequently happening we need more schools getting involved with poster campagns.i would put my name to any road safety campagn.
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