Walk Your Child to School
Walking to school is a missed exercise opportunity.
Roughly only 10% of children nationwide walk to school
regularly. Even among those kids living within a mile of
their school, only 25% are regular walkers.
Walking or biking to school protects the environment and
your health.
The promotion of bicycling and walking to school also
provides an opportunity to address safety. Reducing the risk
of injury includes teaching children pedestrian and bicycle
skills. It also means reminding drivers to watch for others
using the road. Hazardous conditions along routes to school
need to be identified and fixed.
Some of the best ways to increase the safety of a child's
walk or bike to school are to: provide safe, well-maintained
walkways; teach children to cross streets at marked
crossings, and provide ample, well-designed, accessible, and
when necessary monitored crosswalks; slow traffic in
neighborhoods and near schools.
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