Get Your Kids on the Path to Safety
The goal of Safe Routes Utah is to help children get to and from school safely while motivating children to experience the benefits of walking or biking to school.
Why Let Your Child Walk or Bike to School?
The benefits include:
Improved Academics
Students who are healthy, awake and alert show improved academic performance and decreased tardiness and absence due to transportation challenges.
Physical Activity
Daily physical activity builds strong bones, muscles and joints. It forms healthy lifelong habits that decrease the risk of chronic disease and obesity.
Social Development
Spending time with family and community provides positive social opportunities.
Safer Students
Traffic safety instruction and practice increases confidence and safe behaviors. It also decreases dangerous traffic congestion during pickup and drop-off.
Cleaner Air
Walking and biking to school reduces the need for bus services and idling cars during pickup and drop-off.
Saves Time and Money
When you avoid driving your kids to school, you save on gasoline and wear and tear on your car.
4 Places To Find Summer Activities
Being out of school doesn’t have to mean being stuck at home all summer! Here are some fun, easy ideas to keep your kids active, learning and having fun all summer long.
Safety in Numbers – The Walking School Bus
Safe Routes Utah is here to help teach the importance of pedestrian safety to you and your children. As we head into Spring, many of you may be encouraging your children to start spending more time in the sunshine by walking or biking to school. So what can you do to help ensure their safety as they do so? One great option is a walking school bus!
Crossing Guard: Whitney Durfee
Being a crossing guard means helping your community and keeping kids safe, but sometimes it includes close calls and danger. The last thing anyone wants is for a crossing guard or a child to be in harm’s way. That’s why we are talking to Whitney, a crossing guard from Vineyard, Utah, who can give us a little more insight and share tips to make school zones safer.
Three Ways To Focus On Safety
Being a kid right now is not the same as it was 10 years ago or more. Kids are inundated with so many distractions and it’s hard for them to know what to focus on. If we’re being honest, the same goes for adults most of the time too. Being able to focus as a driver or a pedestrian is crucial to safety. Because we’ve seen an uptick in pedestrian crashes, we think it’s a good time to talk about three ways to focus while walking or biking.
How To Talk With Your Kids About Pedestrian Safety
How often do you talk to your kids about pedestrian safety? It’s one of those topics that needs addressing but doesn’t always have a natural introduction. But when it comes to your child’s safety, it’s worth having the conversation and having it often.
Can Drivers See You?
Darker conditions create limited visibility, and as young pedestrians, kids may not realize the danger lurking within their own neighborhoods. What seemed a simple task, now requires hyper-vigilance and the proper gear to make sure drivers can see our little pedestrians and bicyclists clearly.
There’s safety in numbers:
Start a walking group in your neighborhood
It’s like a carpool without the car. Coordinate times when the group will walk past each student’s house for pickup. Rotate parents who can walk with the group.