"My cycle helmet cracked when I hit the road and melted while resting on the exhaust under the car. But the helmet didn’t break, and my head remained protected.

"It was a really scary time for me and my family. But because I wore my helmet things weren’t as horrific as they could have been. I thought nothing like this could ever happen to me, but it did. 

"So, I wanted to make other children aware of how important it is to wear a helmet. That’s why I started my own petition, calling on the Government to make wearing a cycle helmet law for children.

"They might not look stylish, but helmets save lives, and it saved mine!"

It is stories like Maisie’s that inspire Cycle-smart Foundation to continue with their mission to make cycling safer for children. Cycle-smart Foundation has been influencing and educating children about helmets and personal safety for 20 years, and while observations show that helmet use is more the norm today, there is still a high percentage of children that cycle without wearing appropriate protection.

Cycle-smart Foundation says that cycle helmets save lives and reduce the risk of receiving serious brain injuries. That is why they have launched their five S’s campaign, to provide children, and their guardians, with the know-how to properly fit a cycle helmet.

• What we wanted: New training about road safety issues
• What we did: Signed up to take part in new clubs
• What we achieved: Better awareness about the dangers of road traffic

Around 1,000 children in Mali are receiving safety training at school to help keep them safe.

Students from 20 schools will take part in new clubs that offer training and awareness actions about road safety.

The project is being organised by the association ‘Les Amis de la Route’ (Friends of the Road) in Mali’s Sikasso region, and aims to train 500 girls and 500 boys between February and March 2018.

The Road Safety School Sikasso sessions will raise awareness of the dangers of road traffic, with a specific focus on unlicensed drivers.

They will also help Les Amis de la Route work more closely with schools, teachers, students and parents in the future.

• What we wanted: Safer and healthier roads in communities
• What we did: Marched and made artwork promoting our vision for road safety
• What we achieved: Agreements from international politicians to do more

Children from more than 20 countries across the world have come together to call for safer, healthier roads.

Hundreds of young people demonstrated and made works of art promoting their vision of safer streets as part of a global week of action in May 2018.

The campaign, organised by the FIA Foundation, saw children and activists call on the international community to take action with the message ‘this is my street’.

The children focused on the need for more green areas around schools, safer crossings as well as additional traffic-calming measures.

Their campaigning was covered extensively on TV news reports and helped secure promises by international politicians to improve road safety in their countries.

• What we wanted: Safer areas to cross the road
• What we did: Painted warning messages near crosses reminding adults to be more careful
• What we achieved: Support from the Chief of the General Police Inspectorate

In Moldova, young children helped launch a summer campaign called ‘Be careful at crossings!’.

The campaign involved painting warning messages on the pavement ahead of crossings across the country.

The messages reminded adults to hold children’s hands and to “Look left, then right” before and while crossing the road.

In the first six months of 2018, one-third of all road traffic collisions in Moldova involving pedestrians occurred at a pedestrian crossing. Five people have been killed and 142 others have been seriously injured as a result.

The safe crossings campaign was organised by the Automobile Club of Moldova (ACM) and the National Patrolling Inspectorate (NPI).

• What we wanted: Speed safety cameras to stay in schools
• What we did: Marched and spoke with reporters
• What we achieved: Secured support from the local governor

Nine-year-old Preston Liao is one of hundreds of kids who marched in New York City, USA, to speak up for their right to safe and healthy streets.

The children were calling on the city’s law-makers to protect them by keeping speed safety cameras in schools. The law that allowed these cameras to be used was due to finish and the children wanted the cameras to stay to help catch people speeding.

Preston spoke to reporters and the crowds about his three-year-old sister Allison, who was killed while crossing the street with her grandmother.

Preston and his friends, some as young as six, helped secure support from the New York Governor.

The event was led by the Vision Zero Youth Council, which was founded by High School student Alison de Beaufort after her school friends Sammy, Joie and Mohammad were killed by reckless drivers in one year.