The Linea Directa Foundation trains fifty unemployed teachers to teach road safety in the classroom

• With the aim of including road safety in education plans, the Línea Directa Foundation is training fifty unemployed teachers free of charge to create new professional opportunities for them and improve their employability. 
• The training programme devised by the Línea Directa Foundation in partnership with the Royal Automobile Club of Spain (RACE) Foundation, is adapted to the level of each level and includes training as potential drivers, pedestrians, cyclists and personal mobility vehicle users.
• The course, which lasts around ten hours in total, has an online and a face-to-face part, during which the teachers can practice in a rollover simulator and experience first-hand the effects of alcohol and drugs on driving by wearing simulation glasses. 
• The venue for this training initiative is the CIFAL (International Training Centres for Local Authorities) Madrid-RACE training centre at the Jarama Circuit. 

Madrid, 30 November 2022. From this academic year, mobility, road safety and sustainable mobility instruction will be included across all stages of education, from primary to sixth form, in subjects such as environmental knowledge, physical education, education in civic values and physics and chemistry. The aim is to educate children and teens not only as potential drivers, but also as pedestrians, cyclists, and PMV users. 

Aware of this development, the Direct Line Foundation has presented the first course on road safety aimed specifically at unemployed teachers. It has offered completely free training in this area to fifty unemployed teachers throughout Spain in order to improve their knowledge and employability with a view to reincorporating them into the employment market. 

According to Mar Garre, Managing Director of the Línea Directa Foundation, "the children in classrooms today will be the users on our roads in just a few years' time, so we believe that educating them in this area is an opportunity to achieve the UN's goal of zero fatalities in road transport by 2050. Teachers have a key role to play in this process, so we want to help unemployed teachers to train in this field and in this way improve their employability."

Course contents

The training programme headed by the Línea Directa Foundation is tailored to the level of each cycle and seeks to cover the content proposed by the education reform. By law, at primary level, the focus will be on knowledge of traffic signs, road rules, safe use of bicycles and pedestrian risk and new coexistence models. At secondary level, the aim will be to improve knowledge of traffic regulations, the Protect, Warn and Assist protocol and the effect of physical laws on road safety through activities such as escape rooms and the European Safety Tunes programme. 

Finally, at sixth-form level the emphasis will be on the analytical skills of students, encouraging them to engage with the issue of the accident rate and the challenge of ending road deaths. 

The course organised by the Línea Directa Foundation in partnership with the RACE Foundation has an online part, lasting five hours, and a face-to-face element, which takes a further five hours, during which the teachers practice in a rollover simulator and can experience first-hand the effects of alcohol and drugs on driving by wearing simulation glasses.

The venue for this training initiative is the CIFAL Madrid-RACE training centre, at the Jarama Circuit.