The Laboratorium was put in operation on Monday, November 23, 2020.
These specialised bright-yellow micro-buses travel from town to town, including remote settlements, and gather children to lessons on traffic education. The bus's equipment is designed to model various situations that happen on roads and to teach children in realistic conditions.
There are bikes, stand-up scooters, orange cones, showcases, model tables, road network elements, as well as a bus stop model and a bus model.
"Nowadays such mobile complexes are a part of an accident prevention system and are of great importance. If a child isn't taught how to behave safely on the roads when he is small, then when he grows up he will not respect the traffic rules," - Ivan Belozertsev noted having inspected the Safety Laboratorium.
"There are drivers who develop a speed of 150 km/h and think: 'It has nothing to do with me, I won't skid, everything's going to be okay'. But it doesn't prove to be okay. At a very early age a child has to understand well that the road is a dangerous place that doesn't stand mindlessness," - the Penza Oblast Governor commented.
The project of the Centre of Children's Road Accidents Prevention is being implemented by the Russian Association of Motor Insurers together with State Road Safety Unit of the Ministry of the Internal of Russia, with the support of the RF Ministry of Education, Ministry of Transport and Dvizheniye Bez Opasnosti OOO.
In the Penza Oblast the project is to be implemented in the Centre of Children and Youth's Creativity Development. This institution has a trained pedagogical staff who will teach children, parents and teachers.
The education process includes the theory, practice and games. Special programmes (modules) are developed for three children and teenages' age groups, so that to take into account the specific features of the target audience. The methodology was developed by the country's top experts in road traffic safety, medicine, psychology and pedagogics.
Each centre has an equipment of more than 70 items, as well as training hand-outs including workbooks to solidify the trainees' knowledge. Students are also given reflective souvenirs to provide safety on roads. Showcases and model tables embody street network elements, so that it is possible to hold interactive educational events modelling various situations on roads.
"We will spend a month or two to evaluate the educational efficiency of the Safety Laboratorium and perhaps we will buy several more of the equipped buses at the expense of the Oblast's budget for as many children as possible to take part in traffic education lessons as frequently as possible," - Ivan Belozertsev concluded.
