Review
In 2001, Daimler AG launched the first and the world’s largest road safety initiative in the form of MobileKids. This globally applicable and innovative concept has provided support to children aged between eight and twelve years old. For example, girls and boys in Germany, India, Malaysia, Israel and Italy have been made aware of dangers in road traffic and received training.
Together with international experts, Daimler AG has developed an entertaining, advertising-free road safety concept which makes children aware of possible dangers in road traffic, and does so in a playful way.
This concept consisted of elements such as the 3D-animated TV series “The Nimbols” which was designed specifically for MobileKids and has been sold in over 50 countries worldwide.
This entertaining television series underlined the approach of learning in a playful way: material prepared in an age-appropriate manner supplemented the road safety education without finger-wagging. This series showed the adventures of five young extraterrestrials on the planet Traffix, who faced the challenges of road traffic and learned how to treat the environment in a responsible manner.
With the online community of Mokitown, MobileKids created the first global children’s communication network on the issue of road safety. In the virtual online adventure city, Mokitown, children from across the world could meet, exchange ideas, play with each other, undertake adventures together and thus learn and experience more about road safety in a playful way. More than 1.1 million children learned for their own safety here in a virtual environment.
Right from the start of the initiative, MobileKids was to be found not just on the Internet. In addition to participating in major children’s festivals, MobileKids took to the road with its own road shows, such as the Mercedes-Benz MobileKids tour, which provided fun and games for over 52,000 children throughout Germany between 2001 and 2004. This success was continued with the MobileKids tour of primary and special schools in Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate. From 2006 to 2009, the MobileKids tour brought knowledge about traffic and fun into the schools in cooperation with the Ministries of Education of the participating federal states. Mobility games and quizzes developed in cooperation with road safety experts and media educators ensured that information about road safety and mobility was imparted to children in an exciting, age-appropriate manner. Specially designed teaching aids guaranteed a lasting, well-founded follow-up.
MobileKids is enhancing the international concept based on the many years of successful experience. With effect from June 2010, parents and everyone who is concerned with the safety of children in road traffic can find informative, extremely valuable information on the MobileKids website.
