Safety fears keep kids in cars
Parents drive their offspring to school because it is safer, survey finds.
Double and triple parking outside schools, a tumble on an uneven footpath that gave one person a “massive” two-week shiner, speeding motorists and frightening cycle journeys.
Aucklanders have spoken on the hazards families face getting children safely to and from school.
The concerns were raised in an AA survey, with responses shared with Auckland Transport. More than 1600 people responded to the survey sent to 20,000 AA members. Half had concerns about walking, a third about driving and 10 per cent about cycling.
One St Heliers respondent was surprised no one had died where Long Drive meets Melanesia and Auckland roads. Her concerns included: “Buses, cars from multiple, un-aligned directions, poor visibility, no crossing, parked cars at the shops coming and going.” Concerns about a lack of pedestrian crossings were another feature.
“[The] council’s idea about kids walking to school looks pretty much insane when you live on Caulton St,” wrote one Stonefields parent.
Others complained 40km/h speed limit school zone signs were not working or took a swipe at parents who drove their kids to school, adding to traffic congestion.
“A large number of children are taken to school in cars, especially on wet days. Children don’t melt,” one wrote.
AA spokeswoman Vanessa Wills said parents were worried.
“The summary we came to is that kids are being driven to school because there isn’t always safe walking and cycling infrastructure.”
A Ministry of Transport study in 2015 showed that 42 per cent of school journeys by primary school pupils were made on foot in the late 1980s. By 2014 that had fallen to 29 per cent. Cycling fell from 12 per cent of journeys to fewer than 5 per cent.
Wills hoped the Regional Land Transport Plan’s $900 million, 10-year budget for road safety would help. “We want to see a decent chunk of that investment going into schools across Auckland that need it.”
However, Auckland Council’s transport arm had also “fallen down” on communication, Wills said, citing the Travelwise programme, in which schools work with Auckland Transport to create safe school travel plans.
“Some [Travelwise] Auckland schools still feel disconnected from AT, that their safety problems aren’t being heard or responded to, and they’re struggling to get investment for simple infrastructure like variable speed signs and pedestrian crossings.”
AT chief transport operations officer Andrew Allen said they were working with about 400 schools through the voluntary Travelwise and Walking School Bus programmes. Each school has a co-ordinator in direct contact with a lead teacher.
Since Travelwise began in 2005, 75 per cent of Auckland children attend a Travelwise school and crashes around schools involving pedestrians and cyclists aged 5 to 13 have fallen 58 per cent.
They had met with AA to discuss the survey.
“We also logged any other issues that AA raised for investigation and follow up — most if not all were simple maintenance requests. We’ve also said to AA that they can provide the team’s contact details to any school that might wish to find out more about Travelwise if they are not already involved.
“We have not heard anything further on this.”
Increasing the number of children walking and biking to school would ease congestion and be good for health, Allen said, and making sure it was safe was “extremely important”.
One project to improve walking is Safer Communities which, over the next three years, plans to make improvements in key Mt Roskill, Ma¯ngere Bridge and Papakura areas, such as near schools or public transport links.
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“A large number of children are taken to school in cars, especially on wet days. Children don’t melt.” Survey respondent