Haumarutanga rori - taiohi

Road safety - young people

The Travel Safe team work alongside schools and communities to increase active travel and keep students safe on their way to and from school.

Young Driver Workshop

Free young driver workshops are aimed at road users aged between 16 and 24, who hold a current learner or restricted driver licence. Participants will leave with improved knowledge, confidence, and skills.

Each workshop includes:

A 60-minute one-on-one driving lesson with a certified instructor
Waka Kotahi NZTA roadworthy vehicle check (what to check to ensure your vehicle is safe and roadworthy)
Driver behaviour awareness (speed, impairment, restraints, distraction, and fatigue
Awareness session on sharing the road with heavy vehicles

Parents/caregivers are strongly encouraged to attend but it’s not compulsory. The four-hour workshops are held during school term holidays, usually between 9am and 1pm.

Drive has everything you need to prepare for your learner, restricted and full licence tests.

Visit the Drive website

Kids Can Ride

Kids Can Ride is Travel Safe’s year 5-6 cycle skills programme. It is based on the BikeReady curriculum, an established initiative by Waka Kotahi.

Experienced cycle skills instructors visit schools to help students learn to navigate local streets and intersections with structured learning outcomes.

Kids Can Ride consists of two grades: Grade 1 (year 5) – Preparing for on-road riding, and Grade 2 (year 6) – Introduction to on-road riding. Students will complete grade 1 learning before being able to undertake grade 2.

Grade 1 is held at school, usually in a field or on a court and is designed to encourage and develop basic bike control skills. The session also covers how to check and fit a helmet, and a basic bike safety check.

Grade 2 takes place on quiet local roads and is designed to give students real cycling experience to build skills and confidence for making short journeys on local roads. Grade 2 covers how to see and be seen, communication, road positioning and cooperating with other road users.

It’s Travel Safe’s goal to see Kids Can Ride delivered in every school in Tauranga and the Western Bay of Plenty.

For more on Kids Can Ride contact travelsafeschools@tauranga.govt.nz.

Young driver workshop

Kids can ride

School Travel Safe Action Plans

School Travel Safe Action Plans are community led and embedded in neighbourhoods across Tauranga and the Western Bay of Plenty.

Educating with in-school programmes
Encouraging different ways to get to and from school like walking, biking, busing, and scootering
Engineering better routes to school with improved crossings, school speed zones, and shared paths
Enforcing parking regulations around schools.

Parking Behaviour

Drop off and pick up are busy times that pose a safety risk at the school gate. Travel Safe help schools to communicate things like parking time limits, drop off and pick up zones, parking over the kerb and other safety risks at the school gate.

We deliver an in-school parking and safety programme named Peaceful Parker, and partner with council parking officers to do school visits when requested by schools or the community.

Travel Smart and Travel Safe Leaders

For more than 15 years our Travel Smart (Primary) and Travel Safe (Intermediate) leaders have been supporting the action plan by helping to deliver programmes at school and doing important voluntary work like monitoring crossings.

Student leaders know what’s happening in and around their schools and address any safety issues they see.

Intermediate Schools' Bike Safety

The Intermediate Bike Safety programme is a natural progression from Kids Can Ride and focuses on ‘real time, real environment’ on-road cycling.

It involves a road rules refresher, bike and helmet safety checks, school cycle safety procedures, and how to navigate intersections. The programme includes a practical skills assessment and sees students riding in their local area with an instructor.

Design Your Own Helmet Competition

Five Tauranga school students received a huge surprise in May when they were presented with their winning helmets as part of Travel Safe’s ‘Design Your Own Helmet’ competition, while filming a video about the importance of wearing one. Read the full media release.

The competition will reopen again in October this year.

Feet First

The Feet First programme encourages active travel to and from school to support reduced congestion around schools and associated health, social, environmental, and economic benefits.

The programme is based on healthy fun competition through the collection travel data, celebrating healthy ways to travel, and student-led initiatives for promotion. The programme is flexible and can easily be adapted to meet the needs of the school community.

Kids on Feet

A Kids on Feet walking school bus is a fun, safe and active way for children to travel to and from school with adult supervision. It involves students walking together with at least at least one adult ‘driver’ and picking up children at designated stops on the way to and from school.

Walking school buses are flexible to meet the needs of schools and supported by Travel Safe with guidance and resources for students and parent/caregiver volunteers.

For help with Kids on Feet contact travelsafeschools@tauranga.govt.nz

Car Restraints

Looking for Support around car seat restraints? Contact one of our local car seat technicians at travelsafeschools@tauranga.govt.nz. We offer free car seat installations, checks, and will help answer any questions or concerns regarding your car restraint.

Ruben the Road Safety Bear

Ruben the Road Safety Bear visits pre-school and younger children with his minder to talk about keeping safe around roads and traffic.

Ruben has his own song and dance – The Ruben Rock, and his focus lies in four key areas:

safe passenger (child seats, seat belts and booster seats)
safe pedestrian (crossing the road)
playing on the street and sneaky driveways, and
supervised cycling and helmet use.

For more on Ruben the Road safety bear including some fun resources visit his website.

Ruben the Road Safety Bear

The page-turning titles most sought after by Tauranga readers

More than one million books were borrowed from Te Ao Mārama – Tauranga City Libraries in 2024, but one title reigned supreme as the most popular.

Lee and Andrew Child’s ‘The Secret’ was issued more than 500 times this year.

The story is part of a series of crime thriller books centred around the well-known character Jack Reacher. While the books can be read in any order, ‘The Secret’ is the 28th story.

Team Leader: Content, Sarah Huizer, says it’s not just adults getting stuck into good reads though.

“The ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘Hunger Games’ series remained popular among young adults in 2024. The characters are well-loved, live in well-developed fantasy worlds and have themes so many of us can connect to around friendship and bravery,” Sarah says.

“Andy Griffith and Terry Denton’s ‘Treehouse’ series was a hit for children as well. Their first book, ‘The 13-Storey Treehouse’ was issued nearly 300 times by young readers keen to explore what’s up the tree.”

Non-fiction books were also in hot demand, including study guides for Science, English and Mathematics. ‘The New Zealand Road Code’ is a perennial over-achiever, helping countless budding drivers prepare to sit their tests every year.

“Minecraft enthusiasts were also hitting the books throughout 2024, keeping the ‘Minecraft Survival Guide’ in constant circulation” Sarah explains.

“Meanwhile, over in biographies it was heartening to see New Zealanders dominate, with the likes of Sam Neill, Dame Susan Devoy, Dai Henwood, Judy Bailey, and the Topp Twins outmuscling Prince Harry.”

There are four fixed libraries: Tauranga City, Greerton, Pāpāmoa and Mount Maunganui. A mobile library also travels around the city with more than 3,500 items to choose from.

To borrow from any Te Ao Mārama – Tauranga City Libraries location, you need a membership. It is free to sign up for all residents of Tauranga and surrounding areas.

Heading away over the holiday period and unable to visit your local library? Digital memberships are available via the library website and allow new browsers to begin borrowing e-resources right away. The ‘Digital Library’ is well-stocked with a dedicated movie and TV streaming service and platforms offering e-books, e-audiobooks, e-magazines, e-comicbooks, e-newspapers, and even music streaming.

“With thousands of titles available, I’m confident that everyone, no matter what they were interested in, would find something to enjoy in our libraries during their summer break,” Sarah says.

Te Ao Mārama – Tauranga City Libraries will be closed from 12 noon on Tuesday 24 December, and will reopen on Friday 3 January 2025.

“We hope everyone enjoys a great and restful break, and we look forward to welcoming you all back to our libraries in 2025,” Sarah adds.

Top three childrens’ titles