Safety stressed on ‘Walk to School Day’
Hundreds of parents and students gather in Conshohocken to make sure children are using proper safety procedures on their way to school
Students from throughout the Philadelphia region participated in an event Wednesday designed to teach them how to safely walk to and from school.
About 200 students and parents went to school in Conshohocken on foot as part of International Walk to School Day. Gina Duchossois, the trauma prevention coordinator at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, says almost 250 students under 15 died on the way to or from school last year. More than 30,000 young walkers were treated for injuries.
“Almost 75 percent of those pedestrian fatalities occurred in non-intersection locations, which tells us that kids are not following the rules of the road they are not crossing in the crosswalk,” says Duchossois. “Or they are playing in the street, which is not a safe place for them to play.”
The goal of the event is to have parents walk their children to or from school so they can reinforce proper precautions. Many are encouraging kids to walk to school more as a way to combat childhood obesity.
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