False statistics on Child Safety

Dear Sir,

Carol Midgley (Our cotton-wool kids, Times 2, 19th July) is quite right to bemoan over-protective parents, but wrong in her analysis of the road casualty statistics. One of the reasons for the decline in child pedestrian road casualty figures since 1976 can be a reduction in exposure of children to motor traffic: overall casualty figures may decline, but the chances of being hit for every hour of a child walking may not. Parents have reduced independent mobility for their children, very often precisely because of a correct assessment of increased danger from traffic. Other reasons for a decline in fatalities, such as superior emergency medical treatment, have nothing to do with the level of danger on the road faced by children.

We need to encourage more cycling and walking by children for all the reasons given by Carol Midgley and others: failure to do so exacerbates health problems due to lack of exercise, increases dependence on cars, and - paradoxically - helps to add to the problems of danger from motor traffic. Parents should be encouraged to allow children’s independent mobility by explaining that, for example, the hazards of cycling tend to be exaggerated.

However, they also need to be assured that government seriously intends to reduce danger for children by cutting the potential for motorists to hurt or kill child pedestrians and cyclists, and indeed all other road users.

Dr. Robert Davis
Chair, Road Danger Reduction Forum,
P.O. Box 2944, LONDON NW10 2AX