TORONTO STAR, Opinion: October 8, 2009

Your child is snuggly strapped in with a seat belt in the back seat and being chauffeured to school. It’s hard to think of your child as enjoying anything other than a safe, even privileged life, especially when after-school activities are likely to be reached in similar four-wheeled luxury.

You might want to think again.

Some of the most polluted places in our cities are in front of schools, in large part because of the idling cars of parents dropping off their kids. Children are more vulnerable to air pollution than adults because they breathe faster and inhale more air for each kilogram of body weight. Being inside a car is no protection from air pollution either. The International Center for Technology Assessment reports that exposure to most auto pollutants is higher inside vehicles than at the side of the road.

Since Canadian kids are spending more time being driven around, they are spending less time being physically active. More than 50 per cent of kids get to school in motor vehicles, including buses. This helps explain why a quarter of kids are overweight and far more aren’t getting the exercise they need.

The main problem is not the distance. About 80 per cent of kids under 11 live within walking distance of school – and almost as many children say they would prefer to walk or cycle to school. The problem is that many parents believe they are doing a useful service to kids by driving them.

Kids may look secure in cars, but that look is deceiving. Motor vehicle accidents are the Number 1 accidental killer of children. Safe Kids Canada reports that every year an average of 65 Canadian children in the 0 to14 age group die as passengers in motor vehicle accidents.

Yes, there is danger on the way to school – and that danger turns out to be us.

Our car-dominated society also exacts a heavy toll on the independence of children. Indeed, many kids live on virtual islands – their homes, their schools, their designated play zones – with everything in between seen only from the inside of car windows. In our society, a child’s independence is often measured in metres.

I once lived in a remote village in Guatemala as a human rights observer where I observed a different model of children’s mobility. Around 6 a.m. each day, 4-year old Menchu arrived at our hut to make sure we were awake. Menchu lived up the hill from our hut but usually arrived on his own, sometimes with his brother Calixtro, and never in the back of his parents’ minivan. (There were no cars.) A few hours later, groups of other kids would drop by on their walk to school.

It’s not likely that we can go back to a time or place where kids have the type of freedom that Menchu enjoyed, but it is worth asking whether a different reality is possible for our kids.

Yes, we are all very busy and in a hurry but isn’t there some irony (and inefficiency) in driving our kids to school in the morning, then driving them to soccer practice in the evening for the exercise they need?

Parents who accompany their kids to school on foot or by bike set a positive example – while getting their own exercise and getting to know their neighbours – that ultimately protects their children from dangers that are real but preventable: air pollution, poor fitness and traffic accidents.

Instead of driving their kids in the morning, some parents are sending them to school on the walking (or cycling) school bus. This particular bus has no motor and creates no pollution – instead, it’s powered by happy kids with their own capable feet in the company of an adult or older children from the same school.

Kids who get to know their surroundings and learn to depend on themselves for mobility build self-confidence and self-esteem. Having more people on our streets also helps transform barren landscapes that seem frightening into more vibrant, more secure neighbourhoods.

The province can do its part by lowering speed limits around schools to create a safer environment, and by requiring bike lanes or trails in the vicinity of schools. School boards can help by encouraging walking and cycling, and thereby working toward the elimination of toxic zones in front of schools. Fewer kids being transported in cars means fewer cars on the road, which helps create a positive feedback loop leading to less danger and less pollution.

The next time we see our kids strapped in with a seat belt in the back seat, we might ask ourselves: Are we actually securing them protectively or just holding them back?