There’s an air of hushed expectation in the school gym. All the gear is ready: the big screen, loudspeakers, and a platform with two video game consoles.
A tall boy wearing jeans divides up a pile of different-colored T-shirts onto two thick trampoline mats – red on one, orange on the other. Back in the gym storage room, two actors climb into rubber overalls and pull on comical oversized alien heads. In about 15 minutes, around 100 kids will charge into the gym, split into two teams, each with its own mascot, and prepare to do battle.

And then the show can begin. For the children in the third and fourth grades here at a primary school in southwest Germany, the MobileKids Tour has come to town. Other tours – some similar, others quite different – are currently on the road in venues as far apart as India, Italy, Israel, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, China, and Russia. The first-ever worldwide campaign to educate children about the importance of road safety has adopted a new approach, with the emphasis on a learning experience that is lively, stimulating, and close to everyday reality. In short, MobileKids is meant to be fun. That way, children will remember what they’ve learned in the process. In this program, children aged eight to twelve – the age group for which the risk of a road accident rises dramatically – acquire skills in interpreting road traffic situations. This is the idea behind the initiative.

All in a good cause

Road safety is one of Daimler’s core competencies. Children are largely unaware of the dangers of traffic and thus number among the most vulnerable road users. Daimler has been working to improve road safety among children for many decades now. Here too, the Group is determined to fulfill its responsibility toward society.

Developed with road safety experts and media educators, MobileKids was launched in 2001. Rather than simply providing information about the different traffic regulations in individual countries, this global initiative aims to encourage greater vigilance and care among children throughout the world. The ultimate goal is to train the children to practice effective patterns of perception and behavior. The program gives kids the skills to negotiate traffic safely and recognize dangerous situations early on.

Many national organizations in the Daimler Group have already joined the initiative and tailored it to the requirements of their own countries. Naturally, MobileKids is free of advertising and product placement. As Stefan Bernhart from Corporate Sponsorship at Daimler AG explains, “Daimler not only represents innovation in the field of active and passive safety but also fully recognizes its responsibility for the safety of young road users. We concentrate on children aged between eight and twelve At that age they’re already highly mobile, and many of them are active road users with bicycles, skateboards, and online skates. At the same time, they’re still inexperienced and therefore especially vulnerable. That’s why our initiative focuses on them.”