Study of knowledge,attitude and practice regarding road safety among peri-urban school children

Objective: to study the knowledge,attitude and practices of school children about road safety and hazards. study design: cross sectional study. place of study: amal school,a private sector institution in tulspura,lahore. duration of study: december,2012. methodology: a structured questionnaire was used to obtain data from 100 children in classes four to ten. spss version 20 was used for data entry,cleaning and analysis. results: among the respondents,58% were males and 90% were between the age of 9=13 years. major representation was from classes 4 (22%) and seven (21%). most of the study participants (88%) had driven bicycles while motorbikes were used by only 27%. the students of class 4,5,6 were not able to recognize the road signs (56%) but the rest of the students easily identified the road sign. the awareness regarding traffic signs was 52% among males and 51% females. the knowledge level of study participants regarding road signs was considerably high especially in case of what do the traffic signal lights indicate (94%),not to horn (79%) zebra crossing (95%) and pedestrian prohibited (75%). students agreed that driving without a valid license is an offence (69%) and chance of accidents increase when driving bikes and motorcycles without a helmet (89%) and using mobiles while driving (92%). among the respondents,86% had driven a cycle and 27% had driven a motorcycle but only 10% wore a helmet while riding. valid license was present with 4% students and 29% of school children had been involved in a roadside accident. conclusion: good knowledge about road safety did not translate into prudent traffic practices by students.