Red means Stop, Green means Go: the History of Kew Traffic School
- scraze
- Jun 21
- 8 min read
Updated: 5 days ago
One of my volunteer gigs is running the Boroondara Writers Group. It’s been around since 1995 but I took it on last year. I want to raise its profile more, so I’m currently soliciting submissions for a publication called Boroondara Memories. The idea is to publish local memoir and non-fiction about any aspect of historical or contemporary life in Boroondara (we’d love to hear from you – it’s closing 31 August 2025 - click the link for details!).
It turns out that when you think up these ideas for other people to write about, you should probably participate in it yourself if you want to have any credibility.
After much thought, I decided to abandon my usual Ashburton-centric writing and write a story about my youngest son’s fifth birthday party at Kew Traffic School. It’s a charming and delightful place, it has a rich history that I can put a few lines in about, it was also a fun party, what could go wrong?
Turns out I could not find much history of the Kew Traffic School online at all. “Opened in 1957…” that’s about it. How could a place that holds such fond memories for tens of thousands of people over nearly 70 years have so little history recorded online about it?
Well, I’m always up for a challenge, so here we go…
The Origins of Kew Traffic School
Once upon a time, there was not that much traffic in Kew.
This began to change in 1948 when General Motors-Holden began manufacturing the first Australian-made car, the 48-215 (referred to as simply a “Holden”). The new car was immediately popular with well-to-do Australians previously separated by vast distances and the beginnings of urban sprawl. By the 1950s, post-War supply restrictions eased, Holden ramped up production to meet overwhelming demand, and more and more Holdens rolled off the production lines.
Within a year, motor cars were becoming more and more affordable and ubiquitous on Melbourne’s roads.
Although the explosion of cars heralded increased freedom of movement for their owners, it had a significant impact on Victoria Police. They began needing to divert their resources to deal with car licensing and registration, monitoring roads, signage, parking violations, and traffic accidents. Some of these accidents involved the deaths of young children ill-equipped with awareness of the danger these gigantic and fast new arrivals inflicted on the streets they played and rode their bikes on.
Up in Kew, where motor cars were particularly popular with its wealthier residents, the head of Kew Police, Reg Gladwell decided local children needed a safe space to learn how to navigate the streets around cars. It so happened he was also the President of the new Kew Lions Club.
Lions Clubs arrived in Melbourne in 1954. They began as an American networking club for successful businessmen who used their collective resources to support assistance for vision and hearing disabilities, and mental ill-health. By the time Lions arrived in Melbourne, they were a philanthropic organisation of business leaders, politicians and public servants.
They were were wealthy and well-connected men who were keen, in a way that seems unfathomable today, to support disadvantaged people in the local community.
In keeping with the original mandate of Lions International, the initial work of Kew Lions Club was to build a new kindergarten and re-paint cottages at the Kew Mental Hospital. Then in August 1956, Reg Gladwell used his combined influence with the Lions, Victoria Police and Kew Council to put forward a proposal to the Council to hold traffic classes for children on a portion of Reservoir Reserve, on the corner of Grange and Cotham Roads.
Reservoir Reserve
The State Government-owned Reservoir Reserve was then operated by the Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works (MMBW). Kew Council proved enthusiastic about the idea of a traffic school on the site, on the condition MMBW approved the project.
MMBW responded that if Council took onboard liability for any insurance claims and maintenance, and Kew Lions Club provided the fencing, gates and other infrastructure (estimated at a cost of £1,446 - around $65,000 today), plus covered the £1 annual rent, MMBW would allow the project to go ahead. To show its support, Kew Council kicked in £250 to concrete the site.
The only other condition from MMBW was that the Commissioner of Police be informed about the School and that a police officer be assigned to run it.
Kew Traffic School opens
Kew Traffic School opened in June 1957 (the exact opening day remains elusive) with miniature roads, crossings, and traffic lights. Constable J H Dows was its first supervisor.
Within two years, Constable Dows had instructed over 25,000 children aged nine to 14 on road safety at Kew Traffic School.[1]
At first, the kids rode bicycles or walked the miniature streets. It was fun in an at-least-we-are-not-in-school way. Then in 1961, thanks to the industrious students at Richmond Technical School, the State Attorney General presented Kew Traffic School with four pedal-cars.
Now you could pretend to DRIVE around and the fun got bumped up to 11.
“It was the most magical place,” remembered one visitor to the ABC in 2022. “My jaw was on the ground the whole time I was riding around. I felt like I was in a car, so sophisticated, like I was driving a Porsche around!”
“You were stepping into the adult world,” remembered another. “There were so few other places you could do that.”
“My sister and I never got to go,” said one man, the sadness still in his voice all these years later. “The closest we got was in the car, looking out the window and seeing other kids there, riding their bikes around. It broke my heart.”
The 1960s saw car use in Melbourne explode and Victoria Police duly submitted thousands of primary school aged children of Melbourne through Kew Traffic School to learn the ins and outs of road usage.
The 1970s and Minibikes
By 1971, First Constable R.D. ‘Dick’ Pickles of Kew Police Station ran the School. He took delivery of a small motorised ‘mini’ bike provided by Honda Australia.
The Police received near constant complaints about minibikes and the donation from Honda – with a throttle limiting the bike to a speed of 5 mph – helped teach older primary school students the dangers and penalties involved in disobeying the strict restrictions on such bikes and the need to wear a safety helmet.
Constable Pickles wrote, “coming into contact with so many youngsters, it is indeed enlightening to discover how many are actually riding some form or motorised ‘mini’ bike in their leisure time. Predominantly boys, however many girls also indicated they rode this type of vehicle.”
The Andrews Government eventually outlawed minibikes in 2017.
Constable Pickles believed strongly in the importance of the School to not only public safety but to positive public relations for the Victorian Police; then suffering from rumours of corruption that would later turn out to be true. His entire family helped at the School, including his wife and elderly parents. He was responsible for keeping on top of the maintenance needs of the tricycles, bicycles, lights and signals plus a site dealing with thousands of students passing through it every year. On top of everything else, Constable Pickles was also expected to approach and book schools in for sessions and organise a bus to transport students, a significant administrative burden for a police officer of his experience and calibre.
The extended La Nina wet weather cycle of the early 1970s meant the School suffered from severe weather damage. There were no indoor classroom facilities or educational teaching aids. On top of all that (ironically), the high density traffic noise now coming from Cotham Road made teaching outside difficult. The Kew Lions Club continued to support repairs financially, but it too was suffering from a loss of membership, eventually amalgamating with the Hawthorn Lions Club.
After a secondment at Balwyn Police Station for eighteen months, Constable Pickles wrote in 1973 about the woeful condition of the School, left vacant without his supervision. In comparison, the new RACV Traffic School in Moorabbin (opened in 1967 and now closed) had shiny new facilities available to it.
One can almost touch the envy seeping into the no-nonsense tone of Constable Pickles’ neatly typed correspondence.
The Kew Traffic School struggled through the 1980s. Then in 1992, Victoria Police gave it a new lease of life by appointing Constable Kate Simonsen for the job.
“It had the roads and the train crossing but nothing was working and it was really just a couple of bike sheds and a small classroom [by then],” Constable Simonsen told ABC Radio in 2022.
“But I just loved it,” she continued. “I loved how the kids learned so much there. Mostly, I was just a big kid at heart and I just wanted to make it more realistic and more interactive for the kids.”
And that’s how the cubby houses that stand there today arrived.
Constable Simonson fixed up the bikes and built herself a mock-up of the site out of cardboard boxes and took it to Kew Council. Pleased that someone was taking an interest, Kew Council agreed to fund the refurbishment.
“At the time, we got big companies like Myer to sponsor [the cubbies] and they sent in their colours and logos.” Seven companies took up the offer for $600 a cubby. Kew Council built it all and even threw in a miniature tram.
“Sometimes there was quite a bit of mayhem and chaos, collisions and tears,” Constable Simonson said.
"I went there as a little girl and I got locked accidentally in one of the little houses!” a caller told the ABC. “I got really upset!”
Like her predecessor Constable Pickles, Constable Simonson was also responsible for the bike maintenance. “I tried to fix up the old cars but they were too far gone,” she said.
“The kids would arrive and I would herd them into the classroom. We would have a little lesson on the road rules. Just a small chat because you could see they were just itching to get out on to the bikes!”
“They just loved it. And once it was renovated, the first time around, it made a really big difference. The kids would take a bit more notice about the rules. It was something I felt needed to be done for realism and interaction.”
Boroondara Council takes over
In 1999, Victoria Police withdrew the services of a police officer to Kew Traffic School; citing the need for resources in other areas. Boroondara Council took over its booking system and maintenance. Visitors could now BYO their own bikes.
It was immediately popular as a birthday party venue accepting booking three months in advance. “Phone bookings opened at 8 am on the third Tuesday of the month,” one listener told ABC Radio. “The lines jammed up immediately.”
Once the booking system went online, it was extended to six months before the date you wanted. And you still needed to get in early!
In 2021, Boroondara Council refurbished Kew Traffic School once again. Now it has barbecues and a very nice party house with a working kitchen. It’s still as popular with kids as ever.
And there you have it – a little piece of Boroondara giving joy to children for nearly 70 years.
Better get started on my real piece of writing now…
References
Thanks to Maggie Baxter at Lions Club Boroondara Central for information on the Lions Club involvement; and Emily Grant the Local History Librarian for information on Reservoir Reserve.
[1] "Vic Children Learn to Stay Alive," Sydney Morning Herald, 16 October 1959.
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