CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » General Edinburgh

60% more children walking to school

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  1. cb
    Member

    http://news.scotsman.com/news/Road-safety-stroll-for-kids.6634815.jp

    "FEWER children are being killed or seriously injured on Edinburgh's roads, despite a 60 per cent increase in the number of those walking to school.

    Figures released by the city council showed there had been a yearly fall in both the number of serious and the number of slight injuries.

    At the same time, there was a 60 per cent year-on-year increase in the number of children walking to school."

    60% more than last year? Hopeless reporting.

    Posted 13 years ago #

  2. chdot
    Admin

    "60% more than last year? Hopeless reporting."

    Are you questioning the reliability of the figure or something in the article?

    Posted 13 years ago #

  3. cb
    Member

    It doesn't seem to be clear as to what period the 60% increase relates to. I know it says "year-on-year", but is that this year compared to last year, or is it a longer time frame than that?
    And there are no actual injury figures reported, or figures for the actual numbers walking to school.

    Posted 13 years ago #

  4. chdot
    Admin

    I suspect the 60% figure comes from the annual "hands up survey".

    I don't know whether exactly the same number of schools/classes take part 'year on year'.

    I also expect the KSI don't come from an exactly co-incidental 12 months.

    The 60% increase does seem high - welcome if even partial true. KSI figures are usually reliable, so if that's going down and walking is going up that is doubly good. In what way they are related is another question.

    No doubt the cycling figure hasn't moved as much - probably around 2%.

    Posted 13 years ago #

  5. cb
    Member

    Is it more likely that a school child will make the transition to cycling from walking rather than from being a car passanger?

    Posted 13 years ago #

  6. Morningsider
    Member

    Roughly 50% of school pupils walk to school in Scotland each day (Scottish Transport Statistics 2009, Table 12.21). I don't know the exact figure for Edinburgh, but as a large urban area with schools relatively close to where people live I would assume this average isn't too far off the mark. Given this, the claim of a 60% increase is clearly wrong. There is no way 80% of pupils are walking to school in Edinburgh this year, when only 50% did so last year. I'm sure I would have noticed the newly free flowing traffic on the ride to and from work.

    cb - as a school pupil gets older they are more likely to use a bus, less likely to be driven, less likely to walk and less likely to cycle. Cycle usage tends to peak at about age 11 for getting to school. Much of this is due to the switch to high school - which tend to be further away. I don't think there is any evidence that pupils who walk are more likely to become cyclists.

    Full details at:

    http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Transport-Travel/TrendTraveltoSchool

    Posted 13 years ago #

  7. LaidBack
    Member

    cb - as a school pupil gets older they are more likely to use a bus, less likely to be driven, less likely to walk and less likely to cycle.

    Despite the 41 bus route being stuck on Melville Drive at 8.30am the student at my house will go on it if weather is bad. Reason is that she can meet friends. They text to meet up - another side effect of mobiles. She does cycle most mornings but is only one out of few in 5th year.

    When she was at primary she had too many days on the tandem... but did at least discover that cycling was faster.

    Posted 13 years ago #

  8. chdot
    Admin

    "Primary school children cannot see cars travelling above 20 mph"

    http://www.bikehub.co.uk/cycling-to-school/primary-school-children-cannot-see-cars-travelling-above-20-mph/

    Posted 13 years ago #

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