The Office of the Ombudsman for Children, in cooperation with the Polytechnic in Rijeka, held the Conference on Protection of the Rights of Children in Traffic – Where do we stand and what do we still have left to do?, on the occasion of the National Road Safety Day. At the conference, various experts and representatives of important institutions and organizations from Croatia gathered (Ministry of the Interior, Ministry of the Sea, Transport and Infrastructure, Ministry of Science and Education, Croatian Auto Club, Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences of the University of Zagreb, Children’s Hospital Zagreb, association Parents in Action – RODA, Croatian Institute for Social Work, Croatian Psychological Association, Hrvatske ceste d.o.o., Center for Vehicles of Croatia, Faculty of Civil Engineering of the University of Rijeka and the Polytechnic in Rijeka), as well as from abroad (European Transport Safety Council – ETSC), in order to discuss the situation of safety of children in traffic in Croatia and further possibilities of joint action in the protection of their rights and interests.
The conference was attended by pupils and students, as well as the representatives of various education institutions, the City of Rijeka, Hrvatske ceste d.o.o., the Clinical Hospital Center Rijeka, the Police Departments of the Ministry of the Interior, the Teaching Institute for Public Health, the Family Center, the Municipal Court in Rijeka, the Office of the Ombudsman for Persons with Disabilities and the Ombudsman, the Primorje-Gorski Kotar County, Rijeka plus d.o.o., the Institute for Emergency Medicine, county road administrations, social welfare institutions, The Rijeka Auto Club, the Rijeka Youth Center and associations.
The conference, in addition to bringing together numerous respected practitioners and experts, also showed synergy and the great desire of those interested to continue thinking about this topic and contribute to the improvement of the position of children as participants in traffic.
In particular, the participation of representatives of the Network of Young Advisers to the Ombudsman for Children (NYA) and their reflections on this topic was noted at the conference, whose views were addressed by several presenters at the conference, confirming that the children recognized the key problems that adults have to deal with.
The experts’ presentations were stimulating and many of them pointed out in one place the worrying data, phenomena, practices and behaviour of adults in road traffic and in the organization of transport in relation to children, as well as additional needs and opportunities to improve the state of road safety.