What steps it is taking to improve the road crossing skills of primary school children.

Local authorities have a duty under the Road Traffic Act 1988 to carry out a programme of measures designed to promote road safety. This includes giving practical training to road users where authorities consider this appropriate.The Scottish Executive provides funding to the Scottish Road Safety Campaign to enable it to produce and distribute to local authorities road safety education resources aimed at children of all ages. These include Smart Moves, a multimedia resource intended for children aged between 10 and 14 years old. This focuses on safer routes to school and aims to develop decision-making and risk assessment skills and a positive attitude to personal safety and responsibility.The Executive recognises the need for co-ordinated action working towards greater safety for children travelling to school. Accordingly, guidance was issued recently to local authorities and to every school in Scotland on how to run Safer Routes to School schemes. The Executive also funds the Children's Traffic Club in Scotland, which offers free road safety education to all three- and four-year-old children in Scotland.A manual, entitled Kerbcraft, was issued by the UK Government in 1997 to all Road Safety Units in the United Kingdom. The manual, which provides guidance to enable adult volunteers to train children aged five to seven years old in basic pedestrian skills, is based on the results of a successful pilot project in Glasgow. The Government is also funding a study to explore the effectiveness of computer simulation for the training of five- to ten-year-old pedestrians.