"My mother will never drink and drive. Not even water. She stops very often to give motorists way. She would even drive people to work. If there is traffic she will never complain, she will just wait for her turn."

That is how eight-year-old Ashley-Jade Anderson depicts her mother as a motorist in a letter written to the National Road Safety Unit (NRSU). Ashley-Jade, a student of the Portmore Memorial Preparatory School, St Catherine, has nominated her mother as her 'road model'. The letter was sent in response to the unit's islandwide road-safety campaign dubbed Children Against Reckless Driving (CARD).

Children nominate 'road models'

The campaign encourages children across Jamaica to observe the behaviour and practices of motorists on the roadways and nominate the person they most consider to be a road model.

A road model, according to the NRSU, is an individual who displays proper road etiquette at all times.

The children are then encouraged to create a card for that person, with their own design, and affix a personal message of encouragement to their model.

Ashley-Jade describes her mother as one of the most courteous and disciplined drivers on the roadways.

"She will always stop for the elderly and pedestrians. She would even take children to school. She is very kind and nice," the student wrote.

The eight-year-old continued:

"My mother has never gotten a ticket. A police stopped my mother once, not because she was speeding but because she looked very young and he needed to see her papers. My mother is a 'road model'."

Julian Thompson, education and information officer at the NRSU, said the CARD campaign is using children to transmit the message of proper road etiquette to road users in general with a specific emphasis on motorists.

He said reckless driving or driver error was one of the main contributors to road fatalities. Thompson said it was, therefore, critical to correct many of the bad habits that many road users practise daily on Jamaica's roadways. "Even though children are not drivers, they are indeed passengers and they can be extremely important in taking messages to those who transport them. They are also pedestrians and they observe things that motorists do, for example not stopping to allow them to cross," he said.

Thompson said these were some of the concerns that students often raised with NRSU representatives during their school visits.

21 children killed last year

According to statistics provided by the unit, some 21 children were killed in road accidents last year.

Since the start of 2009, traffic accidents have also claimed the lives of close to 13 children.

Thompson pointed out that with every child killed, the country loses approximately 50 years of productivity. "So we have to take steps to empower and protect our children, because they are going to be the next generation of motorists," he emphasised.

Ashley-Jade's letter is one of numerous cards, poems and art pieces that the NRSU has received since the start of the campaign in April. The programme is expected to come to a close at the end of June when the unit will observe road-safety month.

athaliah.reynolds@gleanerjm.com