Within the launch of the program "Safe Latin American Children in Traffic," at the Board of Primary Education (CEIP), the Fundación Gonzalo Rodríguez together with CEIP, national and provincial authorities, present on Thursday, March 15 at 12.30 the report Child Transport to school and safety in school zones. The public welfare campaign "Don’t repeat it this year" will also be presented, which identifies, and aims to modify, the incorrect traffic behaviors observed in the report.

This report is composed of three studies carried out by the Fundación Gonzalo Rodríguez´s Research Department through FACTUM: a telephone survey to find out how children get to school; an observational study of child pedestrians in the school zone on risk behaviors; and an infrastructure survey with the Star Rating for Schools tool developed by the International Road Assessment Program (iRAP) that provides a rating of 1 to 5 stars according to the safety of the school zone. These two last studies were conducted in 54 public schools in Montevideo and Canelones.

The telephone survey shows that children travel to school mainly by car (44%) and on foot (35%) in Montevideo and Canelones. In Montevideo, the observational study of child pedestrians highlights the fact that 44% cross the street in the middle of the block and that an important proportion "does not look before crossing" in the corner (35%), in the pedestrian crossing (42%) or in the middle of block (44%). The road infrastructure survey in school zones shows that although Montevideo has an acceptable performance (3.4-star average), Canelones does not (2.6-star average). Also, there is great heterogeneity in data within Canelones, and there is an increase in rating as socio-cultural conditions improve in Montevideo. This last fact reinforces the idea of rating discrimination by region, where the western part of Montevideo is the most disadvantaged.

Through the project "Latin American children safe in traffic", supported by the FIA Foundation, we aim to contribute to reduce risk factors associated to car crashes involving children focusing on school zones, through increasing knowledge on current status and widening networks at regional level to cooperate in the creation of "safe systems" for children.