[Health education as a factor in decreasing traffic accidents]

Traffic security in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina is getting worse. Use of motor vehicles and frequency of roads are in constant increase. Import of cars of different types, models, ages and quality caused that we are among the countries with insufficiently developed traffic security. Critical group of the traffic participants consists of young people and children. Their behaviour in traffic depends on their knowledge and attitude gained at home and school. Goal of this paper is to point out the importance of health-education activities in traffic security development. Evaluation was performed among the school children in a transit area in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Results show that school children have no enough knowledge about traffic rules; 13.4% of them don't know a single traffic sign. Even 19.9% of them got injured in traffic accidents, out of which 41.4% got injured while riding a bicycle and 22.4% as pedestrians. These initial results show that level of children's traffic culture can be raised only through systematic and permanent education within regular curriculum. Topics on traffic security should be an integral part of education programme, and presented through various subjects.