HAVING read about children playing ‘chicken’ on the guided busway, what has happened to road safety classes in schools?

Do they even exist anymore?

I used to spend several hours doing road safety lessons and I learnt not to play on the road at all from an early age.

I was even shown fairly graphic videos/pictures of the police, fire brigade and ambulances turning up to a pedestrian being hit by a car at 30mph after they had stepped out before looking.

Nowadays children are playing on roads more and more.

What is worse is they now do it in the dark in all dark clothing.

The latest trend on my road is kids lying down in the middle of it or next to parked cars on the roadside until a car turns into the estate. Then they get up, lob stones or dirt at the cars and run away.

They also run out into the road playing group ‘chicken’, with four or more kids suddenly popping up from the floor (hidden between parked cars) feet away from your car and running in front of you trying to tag your bonnet.

The kids I have seen doing this are not even from the estate and I would say are no older than 10.

We learnt long ago that the police do nothing, especially if you personally don’t know where the kids live or their names.

Even if you do their parents are clueless and will say ‘my child would not do such a thing’, despite them doing it every night.

The last time there was some weird goings on the police would occasionally turn up if enough people had reported it, drive around the estate a couple of times and then leave.

The kids see the police car so stay hidden, or scarper onto the fields at the back and can come out anywhere between Asda and Wigan Road.

Andrew Parker