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Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2007 > January > 15
Monday, January 15, 2007
Kids, safety and traffic
(The scene of a 13-year-old hit by a truck in Harrison Twp. in 2005)
In th course of writing last week about how parents are overly fearful for their children to the point where some won’t even let the kids out to play, I called a group known as Safe Routes To School, a California outfit that has taken its model for encouraging kids to walk or bike to school national.
Safe Routes’ program director Wendi Kallins and I didn’t talk in time for her comments to be included in the story or blog posts I wrote last week, but when we did talk I found much of what she had to say pretty interesting.
I’ve been interested in the idea of kids walking to school ever since parents reacted so negatively in August to my blog post suggestion that perhaps my young kids could walk to school by themselves.
Many of the commenters discouraged the idea for safety reasons, citing the danger that the kids could either be kidnapped or hit by cars while walking the short half-mile route to school without an adult.
I challenged those arguments, and at least with regard to the kidnapping idea, the numbers appeared to back me up. Kidnapping off the streets is exceedingly rare. Your kids are more likely to be hit by lightning on the way to school.
Kallins agreed with my assessment on that issue, adding that the kidnapping statistics over time had not changed much in 30 years. About 100 kids a year are kidnapped nationwide — a number that has been steady for decades, she said. Which means that the percentage of U.S. kids who are kidnapped has actually fallen as the number of children in the country has grown.
But then we got around to traffic, and here Kallins has a different view. Traffic danger, she said, really HAS increased significantly over time.
Why? Well my initial observation — that nearly all parents these days seem to drive their kids to school — is part of the answer. All those extra cars on the road at school drop-off and pick-up times have made injuries from traffic accidents an increasing danger for kids.
“Traffic is really different than we were growing up, partly because of so many people are driving their kids to schools,” Kallins said.
Whereas kids in our day often walked or biked to school in groups, today’s kids are most often dropped by a parent who is late, rushing, distracted and driving too fast. Kallins said some studies have shown parents on their way to drop kids at school are the second most dangerous subset of drivers after teen-agers. School drop-off and pick-up times are among the most dangerous times of day to be on the road.
The Safe Routes effort began in San Francisco’s Marin County, where Kallins’ group started working with local schools to encourage more families to have their kids walk or bike to school. The group took a comprehensive approach — doing everything from scouting the walking routes around the school to address physical safety problems and traffic flow issues to promoting car pooling or use of public transit to educational programs for parents about the dangers associated with their driving behavior on the way to school.
The program now had 40 schools and is expanding nationwide.
“Our goal is to decrease traffic and increase the number of kids walking or biking to school,” Kallins said. “We’re interested in promoting livable communities.”
I admit that on days when I drop the kids off in the car I am often rushing and probably drive too fast. My kids’ school redesigned its drop-off and pick-up procedure this year, trying to improve safety, and some at the school mentioned how rude and angry parents were on the first week of school to find their familiar routines disrupted. Some tried to drop off in the old spot anyway or made other unhelpful maneuvers, creating new traffic dangers.
Think about your own situation. Is there a safety concern at your school or the school your kids attend?
(Image credit: Ed Roberts, DDN)
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