Skip to Content
Streetsblog USA home
Streetsblog USA home
Log In

.@NTSB Vice Chairman: Practice safe walking behavior. Stay alert, walk on sidewalks, cross at crosswalks. #NationalWalkToSchoolDaypic.twitter.com/TWRChfTdcZ

— NTSB (@NTSB) October 5, 2016

It's Walk-to-School Day, a day when children all over the country get to enjoy the simple experience of traveling somewhere using their own power. It makes me happy because I love seeing the pictures of kids walking with their parents. But it's a sad day too, because we shouldn't need a special day to celebrate such a normal, healthy, human activity.

Walk-to-School Day also is also a reminder of the many ways we've engineered walking out of the lives of children, and how forbidding our culture and environment can be toward walking.

The tweet at the top of this post from the National Transportation Safety Board is a good example. Here we have a federal safety agency putting the onus for children's well-being in traffic on... children. There was no tweet from NTSB warning drivers to slow down and be extra careful. (In their defense, the next tweet was a photo of NTSB Vice Chairman Bella Dihn-Zarr accompanying D.C. schoolchildren on their walk to school.)

This is par for the course. Last year, on Bike to School Day, the NTSB Twitter account reminded kids to wear a helmet to "prevent death." Very encouraging!

Sure, it's important to teach kids about traffic safety. But how many children follow NTSB on Twitter for safety tips? What exactly is the agency trying to communicate here?

The fact is, even children who follow the rules are not free from risk, because drivers travel at dangerous speeds and fail to yield the right of way when they should. But for some reason we hold children to awfully high standards while tacitly absolving all kinds of dangerous driving behavior.

It doesn't help when official powers contribute to this false equivalence, implying that the licensed adult driver with the capacity to kill and the vulnerable child trying to get to school are equally responsible for preventing traffic injuries and deaths. It's a sick part of our culture, and it helps explain why walking to school has become so rare.

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Streetsblog USA

Wednesday’s Headlines Are for the Children

From mothers with babies in strollers to preteens on bikes, much of the U.S. is hostile to families just trying to get around without a car.

July 2, 2025

Ambulance Data Reveals That Boston Drivers Are 4 Times More Likely to Run Over Pedestrians From Black Neighborhoods

"Overall, residents of predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods are about four times more likely than residents of predominantly white neighborhoods to be struck as a pedestrian."

July 1, 2025

Tuesday’s Sprawling Headlines

Sprawl seems to be having a moment, but it remains a very shortsighted and environmentally disastrous way to solve the housing crisis.

July 1, 2025

Does Constant Driving Really Make Our Country Richer?

A new study reveals that constant driving is making America less productive and prosperous — and getting people on other modes could help right the ship.

July 1, 2025

This Threatened Toronto Bike Lane Gets More Rush Hour Traffic Than the Car Lane

Ontario leadership claim "no one bikes" on their cities' paths — but the data shows otherwise.

July 1, 2025
See all posts