'Street for kids' is back, the colorful protest for safe school streets

With 120 actions in 15 Italian cities, the colorful protest of 'Street for kids' is once again being heard, the European mobilization coordinated by the Clean Cities coalition, which calls for the creation of school streets, the reduction of the speed limit and the making of safety in areas near schools.

From Turin to Naples, from Milan to Rome, passing through Verona, Modena, Florence and Cagliari - hundreds of girls, boys, parents and teachers take to the streets with bike-to-school rides, pedibuses, street games, banners and creative flash mobs.

"With this action - declares Anna Becchi, coordinator of the Streets for Kids campaign - we want to make our voice heard even louder to ask that school streets become oases of safety". "In these days - he underlines - after the dramatic episodes in Turin, Florence and Bolzano in which little girls and boys lost their lives, we feel a shared and urgent need to give them back a safe public space. We cannot accept a reform of the Highway Code that continues to protect the dominion of the car by asking pedestrians to 'be careful', instead of making our streets safe and people-friendly spaces. With the 'All our city' action we want to bring their energy and determination to the streets to ask reduced speed, 30 zones and fixed school roads".

In Italy, according to data from the Asaps Observatory and the Istat-Aci reports on road collisions, dozens of children lose their lives every year on the roads (34 victims under the age of 14 recorded in the annual Asaps report). Furthermore, according to Aci-Istat analyses, in large urban centers such as Rome, on average one school in two records at least one accident with injured students in the immediate vicinity during the year.

Etsc (European Transport Safety Council) estimates highlight that over 600 children up to 14 years of age lose their lives every year in road collisions in EU countries, and more than 18 are seriously injured every single day.