New Year’s Resolution: Walk to School

Tired of the constant battle between drivers and pedestrians, I’m hoping this Letter to the Editor will inspire parents to get out of their cars and make walking to school safe for everyone, not just their own kids!

I’ve met the school traffic and the traffic is me

BY BETSY AGAR, NORTH SHORE NEWS DECEMBER 28, 2012

Dear Editor:

Every parent I have ever met, in every area of the North Shore has a singularly unanimous complaint: traffic during pick up and drop off at school. Well, guess what? That anonymously named “traffic” is just another word for “too many of us are driving our kids to school.”

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It seems we are not the only ones suffering school zone traffic issues

My own kids have almost been hit twice in as many years.

The first time, someone thought a three-point turn in an oversized SUV would be a good idea and his back end parted a group of kids walking on the sidewalk.

The second time, one car was parked across the crosswalk while two others made illegal U-turns in the middle of the intersection. When the middle car was held up by the first, she backed up just as my 7-year-old was stepping into the crosswalk.

My children’s lives are worth more than ANYTHING on their busy schedules.

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Live within limits without limiting life

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8. Push, don’t pull

or even better, you guessed it, make the kids mow the lawn!

Without even mentioning the noise
push mowers get a running start. Lawn experts will tell you that lawns are healthier when they are trimmed by reel mowers (when kept sharp!).

5. Ditch your gym membership

My biggest, BIGGEST pet peeve? The act of driving to the gym.

Sit down for a minute and sum up all of the time you spend driving in a week – ALL of it, zipping to the corner store, commuting, shopping, EXCEPT the time it takes you to drive to the gym – and then all of the time you commit to exercising for the sake of exercising, INCLUDING the time it takes you to drive to the gym. Did you catch that? The time it takes you to drive to the gym is included with the time you’ve committed to exercising.