Planning your Beep Beep! Day

Every death or injury on the road is a terrible tragedy and it's particularly horrific if the victim is a young child. Beep Beep! Days help children, parents and your community to put road safety first. It's also great fun and helps Brake support road crash victims by fundraising for the cause too! So follow our easy steps to running your day and keeping road safety in mind year-round too!

1. Pick the date you want to hold your Beep Beep! Day on and register it.

2. Consider what learning you want to achieve. Pre-schoolers should never be allowed near roads on their own. They are impulsive, small, and their vision and hearing are still developing. But even at this early age, you can help give them the language and understanding of some key road safety lessons: traffic is dangerous because it's hard and fast and you are soft and small; always hold hands; stay away from roads; drivers can't always see you; and children must belt up in special car seats.

3. Can you reach out to parents through your work? Do you have concerns about parents parking or reversing dangerously? Driving too fast? Not holding children's hands? Not using correct child seats? Could the children do something on Beep Beep! Day to help parents understand their enormous responsibility for children's lives, while delivering this message in a positive, community-centred way?

4. Once you've decided your goals, get planning your activities! You are the expert, so you decide, but here are some fun ideas to get you going, and you can use the activity cards in your e-action pack too!

• Draw a town map on a giant piece of paper with roads, pavements, gardens, houses, shops on it. Get the kids to cut out people and vehicles from old magazines and stick them where they belong - people in gardens and on pavements, vehicles on the road.
• Make a giant poster with the title "Hands are for holding" for your entrance hall that can be seen by all parents, reminding them to hold children's hands. Decorate it with paint hand prints from every child in all colours!
• Go for a road safety walk, if there is a safe route you already use, with every child holding someone's hand and wearing a high visibility vest. Why do we wear high visibility vests? What road safety words can we use on our walk? Why do we play in the park and not near the road?
• Use this discussion script to help you chat about simple road safety messages including: wheels go faster than legs, traffic is hard and you are soft and wear something bright.
• Have a running around game in your safe playground, and see who's best at following instructions like 'stop' and 'hold hands' or play online, interactive road safety games.
• Listen to some road noises you have recorded in advance. E.g. an ambulance, car, motorbike. What are they? Listen out for noises on roads, it can warn you that traffic is coming.
• Make a dark space and shine a torch on a teddy dressed in a high-vis vest and another wearing something dark. See the difference?
• What happens if we put a small doll in a toy car and crash it into a wall? The doll falls out. What happens if we tie a string "'seat belt" around the doll? The doll stays safely in.
• Make traffic light biscuits or buns using icing or sweets for the colours.
• Ask parents at home time to sign up to Brake's family promise on a big board: hold hands, belt up, slow down.
• Download our colour-in posters:
  • Roads are for traffic, pavements are for people (pdf)
  • A-Z of road safety (pdf)
  • Child seats keep us safe! (pdf)

  5. Fundraise for Brake! It's easy. In your newsletter, say you are running a Beep Beep! Day for road safety, to raise money for Brake. Invite parents to dress their tots in their brightest clothes on Beep Beep! Day and bring along a gold coin donation for Brake. Then donate the money you've raised by clicking on the "donate" button at the top of this website. Thank you!

  6. Now you've started, keep going! If you don't have one already, write and implement a road safety policy. You can also follow these two links for information about keeping kids safe on trips away from your premises:

  • Organising trips with kids on foot
  • Organising trips with kids in vehicles (pdf)