17 July, Edinburgh: Transport Scotland has launched Mechanimals, a free digital learning resource developed by Leith for Secondary school pupils of all year groups. Through an engaging cast of animal characters, the resource brings to life the real forces at play on the road, making road safety education more engaging and memorable for young people.
The campaign is based on strategic research encompassing digital performance audits, in-school engagement sessions, teacher feedback and a review of existing materials. Our research showed that young people often feel confident around roads but underestimate the forces that make them dangerous. We needed to get them to respect the roads more by showing that cars can cause as much damage as big, powerful animals they would never mess with.
Mechanimals turns those forces into creatures children instantly recognise. A heavy, slow‑to‑stop elephant helps explain mass. A fast, unpredictable gorilla brings speed to life. A charging rhino shows how momentum affects stopping distance. By expressing physics through character and story, the campaign gives teachers a simple way to make complex ideas concrete, memorable and age‑appropriate.
Teachers played a central role in shaping the approach. Their feedback made clear that the new resource needed to be straightforward to use, adaptable for different ages and capable of supporting long‑term learning rather than one‑off lessons. Mechanimals reflects that guidance, offering a shared language that teachers can return to throughout a child’s time in secondary school.
The development process also identified the need for improved support for learners with complex additional support requirements. The new Complex ASN resource called ‘Travel Together’ has been created with direct input from specialists, parents, carers and young people. It includes a lanyard set that provides a simple, tactile prompt for teachers, parents, carers and young people to use when they are out and about. It helps reinforce the key messages consistently in real-world settings and recognises that repetition is critical for learning, confidence, and safer behaviours over time.
Mechanimals is now available to all Secondary schools in Scotland, along with the new Complex ASN resource and supporting classroom materials.
Vicky Karakosta, Head of Project Management at Leith, said: “Collisions on our roads remain one of the main causes of accidental death among children and young people each year. We know early experiences shape future behaviour, so positive road safety attitudes must be reinforced from a young age, in the classroom and at home.
Free road safety resources that are readily accessible for everyone in Scotland are vital to support young people’s learning and growing independence, helping them build essential life skills to stay safe on our roads. That’s why we’re proud to have helped bring these new digital resources to life, developed with teachers and pupils throughout to ensure it’s easy to use and fit for purpose.”
