THE deadline for the ninth annual ’design a road safety banner’ competition has been extended until October 20.

Primary school pupils across East Hampshire are invited to design banners for a competition associated with this year’s Road Safety Week campaign: Speed Down Save Lives.

Promotional products, badges and school uniform specialist Recognition Express has joined forces with national road safety charity Brake to hold this popular competition.

Winners will be presented with a large-scale printed banner featuring their design for display outside their school. Each pupil will also get a high-visibility drawstring bag and the child behind the winning design will be given a special award.

Road Safety Week runs from November 20-26. It is the UK’s biggest road safety event, involving thousands of schools, organisations and communities. This year’s campaign focuses on the dangers of driving too fast.

Breaking the speed limit or travelling too fast for conditions was recorded by police at crash scenes as a contributory factor of 23 per cent of fatal crashes in 2015 and shows that drivers who commit a single speeding violation annually are twice as likely to crash as those who don’t.

Competition details are available at reschools.co.uk/uk/roadsafetyweek.