A MAYOR has launched a stinging attack on parents, accusing them of putting their children's lives at risk by not teaching them how to cross the road properly.

Coun Tony Humphrys's outburst came as new figures show that the number of children being injured on an East Lancashire borough's roads is rising again, despite a raft of Government-funded education campaigns.

The Blackburn with Darwen Mayor hit out after he went shopping and saw parents pulling their children across the road in between moving cars rather than using a pedestrian crossing just yards away.

He said: "What annoys me is that schools spend so much time trying to teach children to cross the road safely, then parents go and wreck it all.

"There are countless times I have stood by Morrisons in Blackburn and watched people nip across the junction between Salford and Penny Street when the lights are against them and when traffic is moving quickly.

"They are putting their children's lives at risk because they will see their parents doing something and then copy it, forgetting what they were taught at school.

"That really frightens me. In my mayoral year, I have attended three memorials for road victims and it is very sad to think that young people are being killed on the roads.

"So much is being done in schools to promote road safety and money is being spent on making the roads safer, but it won't make a difference until parents start doing their bit."

Coun Humphrys was speaking after he collected a 'Kerbkraft' award from the council for taking part in a road safety scheme aimed at children. The event was organised to celebrate the 50th anniversary of school crossing patrols.

He agreed to take part after children taking part in the course caught him crossing a road in Shadsworth diagonally.

He added: "I realise I was in the wrong but I've always made sure I used crossing where there is one. I've seen countless parents just ignoring it."

Blackburn with Darwen will get around £300,000 from the Government if it meets a target of reducing the number of children killed or injured on the roads from 36 a year to nine -- roughly 75 per cent.

Last year, the figure fell to 18 but in the first quarter of this year, six children were killed or seriously injured -- a figure which, if repeated over the next three quarters, will mean 24 children would have been involved in serious accidents.