Wheel Well encourages motorists to prioritise children on the road

Founder of Wheel Well in Fontainebleau Peggie Mars writes:
Wheel Well is a non-profit organisation focused exclusively on Children in Road Safety. Our projects and campaigns are aimed at children as passengers in private cars, public transport as well as children as pedestrians.

Children have a specific risk profile in traffic– they are impulsive, smaller in stature, cannot yet assess a situation as dangerous and most importantly, should not yet take responsibility for their own safety. Our flagship campaign ‘Car Seats for Kids’ has been running since 2012 and to date over 9 000 children have benefitted from new and used donated car seats. We are also delighted to see a reduction of 25 per cent in the road deaths of children since then.

The awesome support we have enjoyed through very trying times was the highlight of our year. All our supporters, from parents who need seats and those who donate seats through to our corporate funders have stood by us solidly.

The devastation that the Covid-19 pandemic wreaked on the families we deal with.

Our heroes are the parents who donate their seats to us, the parents who come to us for support as well as our funders who are all amazing. I cannot single out one person as there were so many.

We have continued to accept car seat donations and hope to emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic stronger and better at what we do – serving our community in road safety for our children.

Road deaths remain the leading external cause of our children, especially for our children under 10. We appeal to motorists to use an appropriate and correctly installed car seat every time when transporting children – whether it is down the road or down to the coast.

Wherever you drive over the holidays, look out for our children where they play.