This puts the UK second from bottom in European figures for child pedestrian safety. Overall, the UK has one of the best road safety records in Europe, coming second only to Sweden. But the government has set a target of halving the number of children run over each year by 2010. Traffic calming The Department of Transport's Road Safety Review, due out at the end of February, will to recommend ways for local authorities to achieve this goal. The recommendations could include traffic calming measures such as speed ramps and chicanes.
Councils also have the power to impose lower speed restrictions than the national limit.
However, some local authorities are concerned that they will not have enough money to carry out the government's target measures. Richard Leese, Leader of Manchester City Council says the city has a backlog of 500 requests for traffic calming measures such as speed humps and chicanes. Lucy Maxfield was killed crossing the road A Panorama documentary due to be shown on BBC 1 on Monday night, investigates the UK's record on child safety on the roads. Lucy's father Mike Maxfield, is calling for a change in the speed limit in built up areas. There are plenty of countries have a speed limit lower than 20mph and nothing grinds to a halt - fewer people get killed, it's as simple as that.