The General Strategy of the Danish Road Safety Council

LEARN! Manual Example #2

This example shows how the Danish Road Safety Council’s general strategy for 6 to 14 year old children is structured and what it contains.

Related Step

The General Level Strategy for the Target Age Group

Age Group

6 to 14 year olds

An example of a general strategy is the Danish Road Safety Council’s strategy for 6 to 14 year old children. The general strategy covers the following elements, in the order given in the text below:

Background information

The general strategy starts by providing background information and giving context. The target group of 6 to 14 year olds is in line with the Danish education system. Besides this target group, the Danish Road Safety Council has further general strategies for those in pre-school (0 to 5 years old) and youngsters (15 to 25) as well as thematic strategies.

It notes that detailed information, including on activities, is set out in the action plan for 6 to 14 year olds. The background information furthermore states that the strategy’s structure is based on the CAST model, which emphasises being explicit about the knowledge, skills and evidence bases.

Collision data

Collision data is provided for 6 to 14 year olds, covering how many children were killed and injured, with divisions presented based on gender, age, type of road user, geographical location, month of the year, day of the week, and hour of the day. The general strategy also compares police records with data from emergency rooms, showing inter alia that police figures only reflect 4.5% of the total number of reported injuries.

External knowledge

In relation to the age group 6 to 14, setting out the knowledge on their brain development, their cognitive development, their socio-economic development, and their development in learning.

Internal knowledge

This section sets out the results of their own evaluations and studies. These illustrate the national context and learning environment in which the education is given (for example, how teachers and head teachers view traffic safety and mobility education, or how parents feel that children should experience good role models). It also shows where opportunities exist for improvement, both in general terms and activity-specific terms.

Actor analysis

Provides a reflection on the other organisations with which the Danish Road Safety Council ‘competes’ for a place on the school’s agendas, for example organisations addressing other health issues such as alcohol, drugs and smoking.

Target group

Covers both the primary as well as secondary target groups.

Boundaries

Describes what places the Danish Road Safety Council would not focus on, such as leisure organisations.

Strategic goals

The overall reduction of children killed and injured, with activity-specific goals set out in the action plan.

Overall initiatives planned

Cooperation partners

The general strategy also includes a theory of change one-pager on their overall efforts related to providing traffic safety and mobility education. In addition, there are four further theory of change one-pagers: three targeted to a specific educational level within the target group (6 to 9 years old, 10 to 12, and 13 to 15) and one on how to market traffic safety and mobility education to teachers.

The theory of change one-pager for the age group 6 to 9 year olds.

The theory of change one-pagers for the 6 to 9, 10 to 12, and 13 to 15 groups can be found in the more information section below. Please note that, contrary to the explanation in Step 3.2, the asterisks (*) are used to indicate the national goals for traffic safety and mobility education, and not the key performance indicators. The Danish Road Safety Council also set key performance indicators, including:

increasing the number of schools that have a traffic contact teacher;
increasing the number of schools which:
- teach the pedestrian test (6 to 9),
- teach the cycling test (10 to 12), and
- have a “Road Safety LIVE” visit and/or teach “360 degrees” (13 to 15).