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Inconsiderate drivers and kids who walk to school



 
 
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  #1  
Old September 17th 05, 05:15 PM
Claire Petersky
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Default Inconsiderate drivers and kids who walk to school

My daughter walks or rides her scooter or bike to her elementary school
every day. Because the route goes on a footpath, it's only a quarter mile;
the route by motor vehicle is four times longer. The biggest problem right
now the kids walking is all the other parents who drive. She only has one
street to cross, and of course there's crossing guards, but the parents
still do not seem to respect the pedestrians in the vicinity.

Someone alerted me to this website: http://drivetoschoolhallofshame.com/
that has photographs from a different school, of all the chaos caused by
parents who are driving their kids to school. What is this craziness? WIWAK,
the only time you got a ride from school was when you were sick or
something.

--
Warm Regards,

Claire Petersky
Personal page: http://www.geocities.com/cpetersky/
See the books I've set free at:
http://bookcrossing.com/referral/Cpetersky


  #2  
Old September 17th 05, 08:51 PM
JennP
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"Claire Petersky" wrote in message
...

Someone alerted me to this website: http://drivetoschoolhallofshame.com/
that has photographs from a different school, of all the chaos caused by
parents who are driving their kids to school. What is this craziness?

WIWAK,
the only time you got a ride from school was when you were sick or
something.


Our town has a *huge* problem with this. It's become a very serious safety
issue. Not only do they not walk if outside the bus radius, but the busses
are practically empty because so many parents drive their kids to school.

JennP.


  #3  
Old September 17th 05, 08:52 PM
Sushi Fish
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to be safe, you want to drive her to school. cars are not the only
threat. your child is still at elementary, too little to walk by
herself, shortcut tends to be in obscure area.

  #4  
Old September 17th 05, 11:40 PM
Kevin Karplus
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On 2005-09-17, Sushi Fish wrote:
to be safe, you want to drive her to school. cars are not the only
threat. your child is still at elementary, too little to walk by
herself, shortcut tends to be in obscure area.


Wrong---the health hazard of being in a car far exceeds the risks of
being a pedestrian, except in the very worst neighborhoods.

For pedestrians and bicyclists, cars are not the *only* threat, but
they are the biggest threat to kids of death or serious injury by
orders of magnitude.

The attitude that everyone *ought to* drive their kids everywhere is
probably one of the largest contributors to the obesity epidemic in
the US.


------------------------------------------------------------
Kevin Karplus http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~karplus
Professor of Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz
Undergraduate and Graduate Director, Bioinformatics
(Senior member, IEEE) (Board of Directors, ISCB)
life member (LAB, Adventure Cycling, American Youth Hostels)
Effective Cycling Instructor #218-ck (lapsed)
Affiliations for identification only.

  #5  
Old September 18th 05, 01:46 AM
Rosalie B.
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Kevin Karplus wrote:

On 2005-09-17, Sushi Fish wrote:
to be safe, you want to drive her to school. cars are not the only
threat. your child is still at elementary, too little to walk by
herself, shortcut tends to be in obscure area.


Wrong---the health hazard of being in a car far exceeds the risks of
being a pedestrian, except in the very worst neighborhoods.


In our rural area for public school, parents do not as a rule drop off
or pick the kids up and they are not allowed into the bus pick-up and
drop off area during the time the buses are loading.

In high school where there are students driving to school, the parking
lots are locked before dismissal. (In order for kids to get
permission to come in a car and be assigned a parking pass, they are
generally on a sports team or in the band or something where there is
after school practice and no transportation after practice.)

Walkers do not leave the school until after the first round of buses
have left and it is not until all the buses have left that the parking
lots are unlocked.

Children who are taken by late buses are 'babysat' by the homeroom
teachers until the second bell at which time all the children go to
the cafeteria under the care of the assistant principal.

The main problem here at the moment is that people are not stopping
behind the buses when they have their red lights flashing - some will
drive past the bus on the shoulder, or just flat not stop for the
school bus.

A car plowed into my children's bus stop one day - fortunately they
were alert and got out of the way. (It was a teacher's car BTW)

For pedestrians and bicyclists, cars are not the *only* threat, but
they are the biggest threat to kids of death or serious injury by
orders of magnitude.

The attitude that everyone *ought to* drive their kids everywhere is
probably one of the largest contributors to the obesity epidemic in
the US.

You are assuming that there ARE buses. Some of my grandchildren go to
a private school where there is no transportation except the parents.
They have specific procedures for this. The parents park and walk
them to their classrooms (in elementary school), and then for pick up,
the parents drive along in a line and when the parent's car comes to
the head of the line, the appropriate child gets in. There's a
different pickup point for different classes.

This is in an urban area but the 'catchment area' for the school is
such that having the school provide transportation wouldn't be
economically feasible. There is no appropriate public transportation.


grandma Rosalie

  #6  
Old September 18th 05, 03:20 AM
hedgehog42
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Kevin Karplus wrote:
On 2005-09-17, Sushi Fish wrote:
to be safe, you want to drive her to school. cars are not the only
threat. your child is still at elementary, too little to walk by
herself, shortcut tends to be in obscure area.


Wrong---the health hazard of being in a car far exceeds the risks of
being a pedestrian, except in the very worst neighborhoods.


See, I'm not convinced that this is entirely true. My suburb is
considered good, yet within the past 5 years, there have been incidents
near the elementary school. I've read that in some areas, bullying is
on the rise -- perhaps not death or serious injury, but bloody noses
and emotional scars are things some parents want to avoid.

My suburb also offers/encourages bus riding (reasons explained below)
so there are no "block parent" programs that I remember from my youth
-- a sign in the window where kids could go in case of problems on the
walk to/from school. (do these still exist?)

For pedestrians and bicyclists, cars are not the *only* threat, but
they are the biggest threat to kids of death or serious injury by
orders of magnitude.


The roads are FAR busier than they were WIWAK. Way more households have
more than one car, far more women are in the workforce, many more h.s.
kids have their own cars, either financed by parents or through their
own part-time jobs. Road use stats in my area bear out the increase in
traffic.

Plus, my suburb was developed in the 1950s, when the auto was king, and
because people wanted low taxes, there were no sidewalks built, even
though subsequent development has meant we're now in a fairly urban
(not bad, just busy) area. Lack of sidewalks led to an "all kids will
be bused" policy -- even if you live a block from school, your kid has
the option of riding a bus. That way, they don't have to pay for a
crossing guard, either.


The attitude that everyone *ought to* drive their kids everywhere is
probably one of the largest contributors to the obesity epidemic in
the US.


I'd take it a step further and say that the very layout of most areas
developed after 1940 is a major contributor to the obesity we face as a
society.

Lori G.
Milwaukee, WI

------------------------------------------------------------
Kevin Karplus http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~karplus
Professor of Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz
Undergraduate and Graduate Director, Bioinformatics
(Senior member, IEEE) (Board of Directors, ISCB)
life member (LAB, Adventure Cycling, American Youth Hostels)
Effective Cycling Instructor #218-ck (lapsed)
Affiliations for identification only.


  #7  
Old September 18th 05, 03:20 AM
dragonlady
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Default

In article ,
"Rosalie B." wrote:

The attitude that everyone *ought to* drive their kids everywhere is
probably one of the largest contributors to the obesity epidemic in
the US.

You are assuming that there ARE buses.


Or that walking or biking are options. For many, either because of
distances or because of the specific streets, they are NOT options.
--
Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care

  #8  
Old September 18th 05, 03:21 AM
dragonlady
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Default

In article . com,
"Sushi Fish" wrote:

to be safe, you want to drive her to school. cars are not the only
threat. your child is still at elementary, too little to walk by
herself, shortcut tends to be in obscure area.


It is exactly this attitude that is creating the safety problem:
everyone drives their kids to school, because of what I think is
misplaced anxiety -- at least, in most areas it is misplaced.

I've been astounded at what some people think are "unsafe" areas for
children to walk in, with no evidence other than the general growing
paranoia.

Add to that that so many of the parents who drive do NOT pay attention
to the pedestrians . . .

And that the schools were not designed to have safe drop-off/pick up
areas . . .

For a while, I was driving my kids to high school (there was a good
reason at the time!), and I was astonished both at how MANY kids were
being driven, and at the total lack of anything approaching safe
driving! Where I live, I almost always have to drive past at least one
elementary or middle school to get anywhere, and I do my damdest to
avoid driving past them just as school is starting or letting out, since
the driving tends to be nuts -- and the parents nuttier. I mean, what
kind of an idiot gestures at a kid to cross a 4 lane street in the
middle of the street in heavy traffic, because they're in too big a
hurry to let the child walk to the corner and cross the street at a
light with a crossing guard!?!

(Can you tell you've hit a nerve here?)
--
Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care

  #9  
Old September 18th 05, 03:21 AM
toypup
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Posts: n/a
Default


"Kevin Karplus" wrote in message
...
On 2005-09-17, Sushi Fish wrote:
to be safe, you want to drive her to school. cars are not the only
threat. your child is still at elementary, too little to walk by
herself, shortcut tends to be in obscure area.


Wrong---the health hazard of being in a car far exceeds the risks of
being a pedestrian, except in the very worst neighborhoods.

For pedestrians and bicyclists, cars are not the *only* threat, but
they are the biggest threat to kids of death or serious injury by
orders of magnitude.


If cars are the biggest threat to kids of death or serious injury, and here
you have a kid walking around a whole bunch of cars that are driven
recklessly, I'd say the risk to the kid in this particular circumstance is
greater as a pedestrian. You really have to take the conditions the kids
are walking in into account when assessing the risk to the child.

  #10  
Old September 18th 05, 03:22 AM
hedgehog42
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Posts: n/a
Default


Claire Petersky wrote:
My daughter walks or rides her scooter or bike to her elementary school
every day. Because the route goes on a footpath, it's only a quarter mile;
the route by motor vehicle is four times longer. The biggest problem right
now the kids walking is all the other parents who drive. She only has one
street to cross, and of course there's crossing guards, but the parents
still do not seem to respect the pedestrians in the vicinity.

Someone alerted me to this website: http://drivetoschoolhallofshame.com/
that has photographs from a different school, of all the chaos caused by
parents who are driving their kids to school. What is this craziness? WIWAK,
the only time you got a ride from school was when you were sick or
something.


I rode to a school (kind of magnet school before its time) that didn't
offer bus service and was more than 2 miles away. We carpooled with
someone whose dad worked near there.

Today, I don't think it's generally a case of Mom/Dad believing their
young prince/princess shouldn't have to muddy those expensive athletic
shoes, at least not around here. I think there are safety/practicality
issues that make driving the kids look like the better option. Our
neighborhood has fewer kids attending public school (some are
homeschooled, some attend private schools without local bus service)
and so there's less of a "safety in numbers" protection for everything
from child predators to classroom bullies to unleashed dogs. Plus,
there are fewer moms at home during those hours to keep an eye out than
there were WIWAK.


Around here, all kids are offered bus service but the school board's
consolidated bus routes to save money, which has contributed to the
problem in several ways. Elementary school got out at 3:35, yet it
wasn't uncommon for my kids to get home an hour or more after that.
Made it tough to make dental appointments, music lessons, soccer
practice, or other pre-dinner activities on time; also makes for an
incredibly long day for a first grader. I usually preferred picking
mine up -- I worked from home then, and generally walked to school to
get them.

Also, with consolidation packing buses to capacity, the board decided
kids who were going home with a classmate (play date, to work on a
project, even being babysat by that classmate's mom) could not ride the
classmate's bus. That meant classmate's mom had to pick up the kids.

I don't like the idea, but I can understand why so many parents ended
up driving their kids.



Lori G.
Milwaukee, WI

--
Warm Regards,

Claire Petersky
Personal page: http://www.geocities.com/cpetersky/
See the books I've set free at:
http://bookcrossing.com/referral/Cpetersky


 




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