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We are a society obsessed with the safety of our children. But kids are forced to run a life-threatening gauntlet on the way to class.
Every weekday of the school year, my two boys, who are seven and eleven years old, run a life-threatening and—for a parent—terrifying gauntlet. We don’t own a car and live about five blocks away from their school. That means they walk or ride their bicycles all year round, the same way I did when I was a kid. In spite of the fact that our neighborhood is one of the most walkable in Montreal—and possibly all of Canada—a large number of parents chauffeur their children to school in cars, pickups, SUVs, and minivans.