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

Slam dunk! New indoor courts a hit with the community

Tauranga City’s newest indoor courts have been a hive of activity this week, with over 3,000 people testing out the new facility at an Open Day last Saturday before it officially opened for use on Monday.

The University of Waikato Haumaru Sport and Recreation Centre has been transformed in the last 18 months from a former The Warehouse building to a fit-for-purpose indoor arena.

Tauranga Mayor Mahé Drysdale says it’s great to see so many people already enjoying the city’s newest community sport facility – the first to open in over a decade.

“The opening of Haumaru really is a win-win for the community. Purchasing and repurposing an existing building was a quick and cost-efficient way to address a community need, while at the same time being prudent with ratepayer money,” says Mahé.

“Both our city’s population and participation in indoor sports is on the rise, so Haumaru adds much-needed court space to the recreation network across Tauranga.”

With four new indoor courts, Mahé says Haumaru will be a place where hundreds of people of all ages and abilities can come together on a regular basis – to play and watch sport, and take part in the other activities on offer.

“Onsite car parks, along with its central location and ease of access, are features that help make Haumaru a great facility. It also contributes to the wider transformation of Tauranga city centre, as we work to make it an even better place for people to live, learn, work and play.”

Max Pringle, a keen basketball player and student at Ōtūmoetai Intermediate, has given Haumaru the tick of approval after attending the Open Day and playing on the courts there this week.

“It’s awesome to have more courts to play at. Our basketball team had our first game there on Monday and the courts, rims and backboard were perfect,” says Max.

“Mum said it was easy to find a park and that me and my mates could even catch the bus there sometimes.”

Bay Venues Chief Executive Chad Hooker says along with regular community sports events and activities, Haumaru will help host large sports tournaments that come to the city.

“Haumaru is already proving its worth to the community, as the venue is fully booked for the foreseeable future.”

Chad emphasised the importance of partnership and collaboration in delivering high-quality public amenities.

“The creation of Haumaru has been a combined effort. We've worked closely throughout with Tauranga City Council, mana whenua, community sports organisations, The University of Waikato as naming right partner, Apollo Projects as the main contractor, and many other key stakeholders in the city,” he says.

The total cost of the venue is approximately $28 million. That includes the price of the land, the building, seismic strengthening, all the improvements and construction work, and the equipment. It’s important to note that building a brand-new indoor court facility of this scale at Memorial Park was estimated to cost more than $40 million.

The future of Memorial Park and whether a new aquatic centre will be built there is currently being considered by Council. The Queen Elizabeth Youth Centre (QEYC) will remain open and operating in the meantime.