English news for Monday, September 14, 2026

Kobe University, a university in Japan, announced a new study^*1 about children and road accidents on July 9. The study says an old idea about young children may no longer be true.

In Japan, many people believe in the "dangerous age of seven." This is the idea that first graders^*2 are hit by cars more than other children. First graders are about seven years old and are in their first year of elementary school^*3. The new study says this idea is no longer so clear.

A research team led by Professor Nobuhiro Mitsuko did the study. He teaches at Kobe University's graduate school^*4 of business. His co-author^*5 was Mr. Yamada. The team used data^*6 from the Institute for Traffic Accident Research and Data Analysis, a Japanese group that collects information about road accidents. They looked at children who were killed or hurt by cars while walking. They studied each school grade^*7 from 2014 to 2024.

The rate^*8 of children killed or hurt went down for every grade in these years. The gap between first graders and second graders became much smaller. In some years, first graders were even hurt less often than second graders. The team also found no clear difference between one grade and the next, or between one age and the next.

So the team says it is not right to say that only first graders are in special danger.

The paper was published on June 29 in the journal^*9 Findings. The team hopes that road safety lessons and other safety measures^*10 will cover all young children in the future, not only first graders.

1. *1 study: careful work to learn about something and find out what is true
2. *2 first graders: children in the first year of elementary school
3. *3 elementary school: the first school for children, usually from about age six
4. *4 graduate school: a part of a university for students who have already finished a first degree
5. *5 co-author: a person who writes a paper together with another person
6. *6 data: facts and numbers that are collected and used to learn something
7. *7 grade: one year of school
8. *8 rate: how many out of a group of the same size
9. *9 journal: a magazine where scientists publish their research papers
10. *10 safety measures: things people do to keep others safe