“My bike takes me places that school never could.”
Anonymous

Kids love to ride bikes to school with friends

By Tara R. McKee

Next Wednesday, October 7^th is International Walk or Bike to School Day. Yes, you read that right: “International.” It is a day that is observed in 42 countries. I am of two minds: what a great concept and yet, seriously, things have come to such a state that a day like this is needed to promote walking and biking to school in all those countries?!

Sadly, too few children who live within easy walking or biking distance of their schools actually walk or bike there very often. Instead, we parents are driving them to and from school. We all know the result: the kids are less fit, the environment is needlessly polluted, and local officials are never given the heavy pressure to improve things if the routes to school aren’t safe enough for children who are walking and biking.

The truth about driving your children to school is that we are making the problem worse with the traffic congestion around the schools.

• Almost 50% of children that are hit near schools are hit by other parents driving to or from the school *
• About 1/3 of children who are injured are hurt when getting out of a car and an additional 1/5 of those are hurt when they come out into the street from behind a parked car. **
• 70% of schools have traffic that spills over onto adjacent streets because campus capacity is exceeded or parents use through streets to pick up or drop off students. *

*New York Transportation Insider

**Canadian Institute of Child Health

These are just a few of the problems and issues related to the unnecessary use of cars for short distance transportation. What are the solutions? This is the first of a three-part series about school children walking and biking to their schools.

Kids enjoy biking to and from school

We’d Love Your Feedback:

Too often we throw solutions at problems we don’t fully understand. Why are we as parents driving our children to school?

If your children are walking and biking to school almost every day, what have you done to encourage it?

What are the schools in your area doing right or doing wrong?