School run parents urged to leave the car at home

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Walking to school helps a child's health, the environment and parents' wallets

Parents are being encouraged to take action to improve their children’s health, lower their chances of being in an accident, and help boost their performance in the classroom by Hounslow’s road safety team.

The team has published a guide for parents “Do you do the school run?” that explains the benefits of leaving the car at home for the school run. The guide looks at how the school run impacts on accidents, health, congestion, the environment and your wallet.

More than one in three of the borough’s 19,000 primary pupils are driven to school every day, meaning thousands of children are missing out on exercise and the chance to develop and practise vital skills to keep them safe on the roads.

Cllr Barbara Reid, Hounslow Council’s executive member for environment and planning, said “Every September we see a big rise in the number of child accidents, particularly among year seven boys. Most of these are because these children are now making their own way to their new secondary school, instead of being driven there, as they were in primary school.

“Parents think that by taking the children to school in the car, they’re keeping them safe. In fact, they could be doing them more harm by not giving them the chance to learn the necessary skills to travel safely by themselves. Walking to school is also great exercise for both children and parents – and it’s free. If the journey is too far to walk all the way, getting off the bus a stop or two earlier, or parking further away and walking the rest of the journey, is a bit more exercise every morning. Studies have shown that children who walk or cycle to school are more alert and ready to learn than if they were driven, so leaving the car at home has wider benefits than you might think. The internet bank Egg has undertaken research which estimated the cost of the school run to families in the UK to be a staggering £1.66 billion – money which families would agree could be better spent on other things!”

If you needed further encouragement to leave the car keys at home, a recent Government study entitled “Forecasting Obesity by 2010” paints a grim picture predicting the levels of obesity in England should current trends continue.  The report found that:

• Girls will overtake boys in the obesity stakes, with nearly 1 in 5 girls aged 2-10 expected to be obese in 2010;
• Statistics for 2003 showed that more boys in middle-class (non-manual) households were more obese compared to manual;
• In households with two obese parents, 1 child in 4 is obese, compared to 1 child in 8 in households where one parents is obese and 1 in 20 where no parents are obese.

As well as the safety and health aspects, leaving the car at home can have an impact on traffic levels. With as many as one in five cars on the road in the mornings during term time completing the school run, leaving the car at home could massively reduce congestion around schools. The new guides have been sent out to local primary schools where parents can find out more or visit www.hounslowSTP.org.

September 5, 2006