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Exploring/Transportation and roads/Road safety/Travel Safe/Road safety - young people

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Kids can ride

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.

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

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

Design Your Own Helmet Competition

Download the template and submit your design to be in to win your own one-of-a-kind helmet airbrushed by a local artist.

Entries closed Friday, 28 February 2025.

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.

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

Young driver workshop

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.

Related news

New crossings help keep children safe

News, Te Papa

New crossings help keep children safe

Local Tauranga school students can now safely cross Fraser Street between 17th and 18th Avenue, thanks to a new signalised crossing.

Posted: 12 September 2024

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Go By Bike Day rolls around

Posted: 29 February 2024

Go By Bike Day is back and we’re encouraging people of all ages to trade their car trips for bike rides and discover the benefits of safe cycling.

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It’s time to cycle!

Posted: 08 January 2024

It’s time to cycle with Travel Safe’s new February to April calendar of free cycling activities for riders of all levels across Tauranga and the Western Bay.