The 2024 Walk to School Week will happen from May 20th - May 24th. The event is promoted by Living Streets (The Pedestrians' Association), a charity focused on encouraging people to walk, and on creating a better walking environment.
It sometimes feels as if the school-run is something we do on automatic pilot before we're even fully awake. We don't generally sit and analyse it. Walk to School Week offers us a chance to devote a little more thought to the school-run and what we could save or gain by changing that routine.
The journey to school: facts and figures
The average distance of a one-way school trip in England is around two and a half miles. Government figures for 2022, based on the National Traffic Survey, tell us that the transportation methods used by school students between the ages of 5 and 16 break down as shown in the following table.
| Mode of transport (to/from school) | Proportion * Of students using (%) |
|---|---|
| Walk | 47% |
| Car/van | 33% |
| Local bus service | 10% |
| Private/school bus | 4% |
| Cycle | 3% |
| Surface rail | 1% |
| Other transport | 1% |
| * Percentages shown after rounding | |
Most people cited road safety as the main issue preventing their children from walking to school. When asked what might motivate more people to do the school run on foot, again, improvements to road safety was the most frequently cited factor. However, even more people said that they didn't think that changes to any factor would result in their children walking to school more often.
Why should we and our children walk to school?
Advocates of walking offer a range of reasons why it would be great if we and our children walked further and more often. Some of the reasons are those concerned with wellbeing, while others are based on simple economics. Additionally, the decision of whether to drive or walk has wider, indirect implications that we may wish to consider. But let's start with the obvious.
A fuel and money-saving exercise
If we can eliminate car journeys, we will obviously save fuel.
According to car sales website Cinch, average fuel economy for UK cars is as shown below. (Bear in mind that figures based on realistic driving conditions will usually be different to the fuel economy performance claimed by manufacturers in their specifications.)
| Fuel type | Miles per gallon (MPG) or equivalent MPGe |
|---|---|
| Petrol | 36 |
| Diesel | 43 |
| Hybrid | 59 |
| Full electric | 159 MPGe |
Of course, everyone's vehicles and routines are different so, for simplicity, we'll use good old (or bad old) petrol as our example, and we will make the following assumptions.
- The driver will run the kids to school and then drive home again.
- The driver will repeat the journey and collect the kids at the end of the school day.
- The distance from home to school is the average two and a half miles.
- The cost of unleaded petrol in our example is £1.50 per litre.
We will use the journey calculator on the https://www.mpg-calculator.co.uk/ website to do our sums.
So, the average distance to school is, as we've seen, about 2.5 miles each way, or 5 miles for the trip to school and home again. We're assuming pick-up at the end of school, so that's another 5 mile round trip, giving us a daily total of 10 miles.
We calculate that the cost of conveying children to and from school is £2.18 per day. When we consider that there are at least 190 school days in the UK school year, the money starts to look significant.
The annual school-run cost in our example case would be £414.20.
In everyday terms, that's the equivalent of 88.1 pints in the average local pub (but not on a school night), or 118 lattes for those on the wagon.
Save your car as well as your fuel
Frequent short journeys are bad for cars. Today's vehicles cope better than older ones, but they still suffer ill effects over time. Here are a few of the potential issues:
- Short trips can reduce battery life due to insufficient recharge time during short trips.
- Damage or wear can be caused by revving the engine before the oil has had a chance to warm up. The school run is often hectic and patience is not always an option. Revving to warm up the car or accelerating harshly when the engine is cold can reduce engine life.
- Short journeys at limited speeds may result in incomplete combustion and build up of carbon deposits on engine and ignition components.
- Diesel cars may suffer damage to the DPF particulate filter. The filter cannot clean or regenerate at insufficient operating temperatures.
Of course, there are also the usual hazards faced on all journeys: potholes; accidents etc.
A life-saving exercise
Sitting for long periods is bad for us, regardless of age. Many of us work in offices or other environments where we need to stay in one place for prolonged periods. The same is true for school students. Walking to school not only offers a valuable opportunity to eliminate yet another sitting session (in the car) and to offset some of the day's static time with exercise.
We and our children need more activity
Medical science tells us that obesity kills. Those of us who weigh more than we should may expect our lives to be a little (or a lot) shorter because of it. Obesity increases the risk of heart disease, cancer, diabetes and other conditions.
Let's look at some more government statistics. At 'reception age' (4-5 years), 22.2% of children are obese or overweight. By the time they reach 10-11 years of age, 37.7% of children are obese or overweight. The two key factors in weight are the same for children as they are for adults: nutrition and exercise.
Walking is good exercise: brisk walking is better exercise. The more exercise we do, the easier and more enjoyable it becomes, and the better we feel for it.
Other savings and benefits
Walking more and driving less has other benefits too.
- Walking offers additional opportunities for parents and students to socialise.
- Reducing traffic at school-run times would alleviate the awful congestion and chaos that surrounds most schools at drop-off and pick-up times. Parking on both sides of roads often causes bottlenecks, blocks roads and access obstructs pavements and causes arguments.
- Reducing school-run traffic would help reduce car emissions and pollution.
- Less traffic means fewer accidents.
Don't ask 'Why should we?': ask 'What's stopping us?'
A few final thoughts aimed at addressing common objections to walking to school.
- If the journey seems too long for young children, then why not walk part of the way?
- If you don't think you have time, you could try getting up earlier or streamlining your morning routine.
- If you're worried about road safety then educate your children about safe behaviour near roads. Remember, that the more people walking, the less busy the traffic will be on the route to school.
Give walking a try during Walk to School Week. You may even get to like it.
