Do letters from dead children stop dangerous drivers?

Drivers in Russia’s Siberian city of Novosibirsk have been handed letters from…dead children. The unusual action was organised by local road police on the threshold of September 1, when children go back to school after summer holidays.

According to police the first autumn month is the most dangerous for children and has the highest figures of children getting injured or killed in car accidents.

As a result, to remind drivers to pay attention on the road and be more careful, the police and students of a local teachers’ training university have come up with an unusual idea.

They've handed letters to drivers from boys and girls who’ve never gone to school because they were killed by cars.

Texts were written by Elena Pisarevskaya, from road police propaganda department. She told Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper they were based on real stories.

One of the ‘girls’ writes:

«…I prepared my most beautiful dresses, shirts and skirts to go to school. I wanted everyone there to like me. My mum bought me a hair band…And once my father was taking us to the country, where we wanted to swim and sunbath. But on the way there our car collided with another one,» it reads.

“I wasn’t wearing a seat belt and I wasn’t in a child’s car safety seat, that’s why I died straight away. My parents were taken to hospital”.
 
According to statistics, there were 12,016 car accidents involving children from January to July 2008: 557 died and 12,463 were injured.