Traffic education with a focus on experiences in basic education: A global literature review

The article aims to synthesize scientific production on traffic education worldwide, focusing on basic education. The methodology included a literature review from a bibliometric perspective, using R Software and the Biblioshiny website for document tracking, quantitative analyses, and a systematic perspective through qualitative document analysis. The results revealed a mapping of 347 documents from the Scopus database and 80 papers from the Web of Science database. After removing 54 duplicate documents, 373 papers produced between 1970 and 2024 were analyzed. From 2011 onwards, the growth consolidated, maintaining fluctuations at higher levels than those observed before this period. From a methodological perspective, 30.56 % of the articles present traffic education experiences with children in school environments. These articles analyze gamification, training, and behavioral patterns in safe crossings and circuits. They also explore children's risk perception and review materials such as manuals and textbooks used in traffic education. The remaining articles (69.44 % of the total analyzed) present analyses of driver and driving school student perceptions (risk behavior and attitudes) through questionnaires, accident data analysis, simulators for behavior analysis, and literature reviews. Traffic education is increasingly viewed not as an isolated initiative but as an ongoing and essential component of building a safe systems approach. However, evidence assessing its direct impact on crash reduction remains limited and inconclusive. This underscores the need for context-specific strategies to enhance traffic safety and integrate schoolchildren's education, driver awareness, and road infrastructure improvements. These findings highlight a growing but still fragmented body of research, with limited Latin American representation and a need for stronger empirical foundations. Continued efforts are needed to consolidate traffic education as a core pillar in road safety policy.