Are school zones effective?

Pediatrics for Parents, Nov-Dec, 2010 by Joel Warsh, Linda Rothman, Alyssa Jones, Andrew Howard

Motor vehicle versus pedestrian crashes are a leading cause of injury and death among children. Because attending school is a major focal point of a child's daily activity, many pedestrian-related injuries among children occur on the way to or from school. Research on this topic has shown a number of factors to be related to motor vehicle versus pedestrian crashes, some of which include: school travel times, season, neighborhood characteristics and the number of schools in the area. School zones have been created in many areas, aimed to reduce the risk of pedestrian-related injuries to children and are meant to be safe places for children to walk during school travel times. However, the question remains as to how effective these zones are and if more should be done to protect our youth.

Our study used pedestrian collision data from the City of Toronto's Traffic Data Centre and Safety Bureau. The study included all police-reported motor vehicle collisions involving pedestrians with a recorded age less than 18 years that occurred in Toronto, Canada between January 1, 2000 and December 31, 2005. The Toronto District School Board (TDSB) provided a list of all 1,050 schools registered in Metropolitan Toronto. School zones, established by the Toronto Transport Operations, are defined as a 150-meter radius around a school.

For the purpose of this study, additional zones were designated around schools at increasing distances of 150, 150-300, 300-450 and 450 meters. Frequency of vehicle-pedestrian collisions around schools in each zone was determined.

We found that there were a total of 2,717 collisions in Toronto between 2000 and 2005 that involved children under the age of 18. The largest proportion of collisions was in the 10-14 year age group (37%). Almost 50% of collisions occurred during the hours defined as school travel times (7-9 am, 12-1 pm, and 3-5pm). When considering the rate per hour, there was 3.3 times greater rate of injury during school travel time. Furthermore, higher numbers of child pedestrian collisions occurred during the school year (from September to June), with a drop in the summer (July and August).

School zones were found to be less than 10% of the surface area of the city, but had a much higher risk of child pedestrian collisions than other areas. The absolute density of injuries (collisions divided by units of area [m2]) and fatalities (fatalities dived by units of area [m2]) were 5.7 and 9.4 times higher in the school zones as compared to the largest zone (450m or more away from the school).

The increased density of injuries in school zones may be due to the greater numbers of children walking in these areas. It may also be that there is a greater concentration of vehicles around schools when children are being picked up/dropped off, and the school environment has not accommodated well for this increased traffic. Follow-up studies need to be done investigating the volume of child pedestrians and vehicular traffic in school zones to provide further insight into the increased burden of injuries in these areas.

School travel provides an excellent opportunity for interventions, as regular journey patterns to school are easy to target and encompass the vast majority of children. All children venture to school around the same peak times with the same destination every weekday. Students provide a well-defined target audience over which it is possible to exert a significant influence on injury rates.

The best evidence regarding prevention of child pedestrian injuries is related to modifications to the physical environment. There is good evidence that interventions focused on traffic engineering (speed humps, speed control, fencing, separation, curb parking) are effective in reducing child pedestrian injuries. Although some interventions (e.g. reduced speed zones) are already present in school zones, the fact that the child pedestrian injuries continue to be an issue in these specific areas indicates that more attention is needed to environmental modification. Focusing interventions around schools with attention to travel times, school session and environmental modification could significantly reduce the risk of injury in children.

Many parents are unwilling to allow their children to walk to school due to fear of injury or harm. However, as the number of children who regularly walk to school decreases, there is a concurrent relationship with an increase in childhood obesity. If the risks involved in traveling to school were minimized, then more parents would likely be inclined to allow their children to walk.

Joel Warsh is a medical student at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He completed his Masters in Epidemiology and Community Health at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.

Alyssa Jones is a medical student at Thomas Jefferson University, Linda Rothman is a researcher at Sick Children's Hospital in Toronto, Canada, and Dr. Andrew Howard is an Orthopedic Surgeon at Sick Children's Hospital in Toronto, Canada.