Safe Routes to Soccer
I have a pet theory that roughly 20% of the increase in vehicle miles traveled in the U.S. over the past few decades can be traced to organized youth soccer.
This post, from a blog called freerangekids, adds some evidence:
My 10-year-old son wanted the chance to walk from our house to soccer practice behind an elementary school about 1/3 mile from our house. He had walked in our neighborhood a number of times with the family and we have driven the route to practice who knows how many times. It was broad daylight – 5:00 pm. I had to be at the field myself 15 minutes after practice started, so I gave him my cell phone and told him I would be there to check that he made it and sent him off. He got 3 blocks and a police car intercepted him. The police came to my house — after I had left — and spoke with my younger children (who were home with Grandma). They then found me at the soccer field and proceeded to tell me how I could be charged with child endangerment. They said they had gotten “hundreds” of calls to 911 about him walking. Now, I know bad things can happen and I wasn’t flippant about letting him go and not checking up, but come on. I live in a small town in Mississippi. To be perfectly honest, I’m much more concerned about letting him attend a birthday party sleepover next Friday, but I’m guessing the police wouldn’t be at my house if I chose to let him go (which I probably won’t).
As someone who walked to school every day, rode a bike unhelmeted all over the ‘burbs, etc., this makes me feel like an grouchy old-timer.
(Horn honk to boingboing)
This entry was posted on Friday, March 20th, 2009 at 9:46 am and is filed under Pedestrians. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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