Motorists would be forced to keep to 40 kilometres per hour around childcare centres under a proposal from a City of Sydney councillor to reduce the number of children hit and killed by cars.
If the proposal is approved, the City of Sydney council will also call on the state government and opposition to implement road safety measures near childcare centres around the state.
The measures would include lowered speed limits and traffic calming measures such as narrowed streets, raised crossings and road paint.
The councillor behind the motion, Jess Scully, is particularly concerned about a childcare centre in a residential part of Glebe near the intersection of Mitchell and Glebe streets, which have 50kph speed limits.
"The impact that a car travelling 50kph has on a child or a pedestrian is fatal," Cr Scully said.
"It's also really bizarre oversight that we don't have any rules in New South Wales about safe traffic conditions around childcare centres."
National data shows an average of one child a week died in a road trauma event in Australia between 2013 and 2023.
A three-year-old boy playing at a playground at the intersection of Mitchell and Glebe Streets was killed after being struck by a 4WD in December 2021.
"That is entirely preventable — that is something that we can intervene in tomorrow," Cr Scully said.
"It shouldn't cost anything to reduce the speed limits."
Locals concerned about speedy shortcut
Glebe parent Sahand Mahmoodian is concerned that the intersection of Mitchell and Glebe streets has no crossings or stop signs on Glebe Street.
"When you see a street and there is nothing in front of you, you're not going to be wary, you're not going to know that there could be children here," Mr Mahmoodian said.
Mr Mahmoodian, who has a child who attends the childcare centre and an eight-month-old, worries that Glebe Street is often used as a shortcut to avoid the main street Glebe Point Road, which has a 40kph speed limit.
"Usually, they're in a hurry, driving quite quickly," Mr Mahmoodian said.
"We think that this is dangerous for some of the kids playing on this playground and kids going and leaving the childcare centre."
Pedestrian crossings are due be installed at the intersection under the city's capital works program for 2024-25.
Vehicle accidents are the biggest killer of children
Land transport accidents are the leading cause of death among children aged 1-14 years old, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.
Michelle McLaughlin, who is researching road safety as part of a project funded by the National Office of Road Safety, said children could be unpredictable.
"Little children 10 years and younger can be very curious, very quick to move, excitable," she said
Ms McLaughlin's four-year-old son Tom was killed when he was struck by a car during a family beach holiday.
The incident inspired her to found the Little Blue Dinosaur Foundation, which is taking part in the research by educating parents and carers at preschools.
Ms McLaughlin said education and reducing speed limits were key to reducing the number of children killed on roads.
She said the message for kids must be: "When you leave and come into preschool, you must hold mum and dad's hand."
UNSW transport safety Professor Anne Williamson is also working on the project and said safety measures should be about more than just speed.
"It would be a very simple matter to also put a small fence, equivalent to the type that's keeping your child in the playground, along the footpath … to stop the child rushing out of the gate and inadvertently ending up on the road," Dr Williamson said.
"Towards Zero ambition should definitely be applying to little children."
Calls for further speed reductions
Cr Scully's motion also calls for 40kph speed limits to be applied across all roads in the city area.
She said while Andrew Constance was NSW Minister for Transport, he made a commitment that all roads in the City of Sydney would be 40kph by the end of 2021.
Currently 75 per cent of the city's roads have that limit.
Minister for Metropolitan Roads Natalie Ward said the Coalition had no further plans to reduce speed limits in the City of Sydney.
"We will continue to work with all councils and implement any measure which increases safety in areas frequented by children," Ms Ward said.
Labor roads spokesperson John Graham said they had no comment on the issue.
