Petron Corporation, the country’s leading oil company, has partnered with the Philippine National Police (PNP) in establishing one of the nation’s first interactive road safety parks to provide children and their parents an interesting venue to learn about road safety.
Located inside Camp Crame in Quezon City, the PNP-Petron Children’s Road Safety Park is an open space featuring a driving lane that winds across multiple traffic markers and other instructional signages. Here, children can have hands-on experience and learn various rules on how to be safe on the road and extend courtesy to motorists and pedestrians.
As an added feature, it will have its own Petron station to give the park a ‘real-world’ feel. Also seen throughout the park are bigger-than-life sculptures of popular action figures such as Iron Man and Spider Man to create a ‘theme park’ vibe.
“Petron has always been a strong advocate of road safety. We have been sustaining programs that ensure safer journeys for all for over 30 years. Through this park, we can start them young and share safety awareness while teaching the values of responsibility, respect, and regard for rules,” Petron Foundation General Manager Charmaine V. Canillas said.
The PNP-Petron Children’s Road Safety Park builds on the strategic partnership between Petron and the PNP under the Lakbay Ligtas program which utilizes Petron service stations to increase police visibility nationwide. There are now 300 Petron stations under the project and is expected to expand to 1,000 by year-end.
Petron also runs the Lakbay Alalay program which is the longest running motorist assistance project in the country.
The company is also looking to engage the Department of Education in promoting road safety among the millions of primary school children in the country, with the PNP-Petron Children’s Road Safety Park as a principal learning venue.
Admission to the park is free of charge but is subject to the existing regulations at Camp Crame. Before entering the park, visitors will be briefed by the PNP-Police Community Relations Group (PCRG) on road safety rules and practices. A PNP Museum Tour can also be included in the itinerary for those who are on tour in the camp, or are merely there to visit.
The opening of the PNP-Petron Children’s Road Safety Park supports the Decade of Action (2011-2020) for Road Safety by the United Nations which calls on member nations to craft and implement their own road safety action plans to reduce fatalities by 2020. It is also in time for the U.N.’s Global Road Safety Week which begins on May 10.
May is also the month of road safety in the Philippines by virtue of a Presidential Proclamation. According to recent studies, 100 Filipino children become victims of road accidents daily, which is why road traffic injuries now rank as the second most common type of accidents for children aged 5-12.