Students at Dawlish College are hopeful that road safety improvements outside their school will be implemented after meeting with road safety bosses, local councillors, representatives of local MP Martin Wrigley, and police and crime commissioner Alison Hernandez.

Of 330 Dawlish College students who responded to a survey about road safety, nine reported that they have been hit by a vehicle outside the school. A further 173 students said they had experienced a close call while crossing the road on their way to or from school and a further 65 family members or staff at the College have also had close calls.

Emily, a year 10 student who heads up Dawlish Student Leadership Team said ‘we were alarmed and really quite concerned about the responses to the survey’.

‘We are not statistics, we are people, young people. All we want is to get to and from school safely,’ added student leadership council member Cohen.

One student, Sidney, who was hit by a car while crossing the road on his way to school last June, shared his story. ‘Last June, on my way to school, dad dropped me off on the other side of the road, as he usually does. I looked around, saw that there wasn’t much traffic, and started to cross the road,’ he said in a statement read out by fellow student Thomas. Sidney suffered a head injury and was taken by ambulance to the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and transferred to Bristol after feeling quite tired and vomiting. He recalled having a mask put on and falling asleep in Exeter and then waking up in Bristol where he had undergone an operation to fix a bleed on his brain. ‘I still feel frightened about crossing the road because the cars coming towards me scare me,’ Sidney said. ‘I do not want to experience such a bad headache ever again,’ he added. Sidney was in hospital for five days and was off school for the rest of the academic year. ‘I wish we could make crossing the road safe so what happened to me never happens to anyone else,’ he concluded.

After working with Citizens UK, an organisation that works to bring communities together to win change, the Dawlish College Student Leadership Team have launched a ’20 is plenty’ campaign and proposed several measures that could improve road safety outside their school. These include:

- a zebra crossing to give people a safer place to cross the road

- increased school staff parking to reduce the number of cars parked along the road, leading to better visibility

- better signage to alert drivers and encourage them to respect the speed limit

- double yellow lines along the road to stop cars from parking and increase visibility when crossing the road

- installing a smiley faced speed activated camera to show drivers how fast they are driving and to praise drivers for respecting the speed limit

Responding to the suggestions, Devon County Council road safety team manager James Anstee commented ‘this is very good list of measures and we could work with the school on all of them.’ However, he pointed out that some of the proposals would involve taking out parking and that consideration should also be given to residents. ‘While not all of the measures are immediately deliverable, it should be possible to make real change on Elm Grove,’ he concluded.

Devon County Councillor Stuart Hughes, who was unable to attend the meeting in person, sent a message supporting the students’ efforts and stated that the Council would work with the school to improve road safety.