SUPPORTED BY GF INSURANCE FUND

“Mom, won’t you drive me to school?” “Dad, it’s windy. I don’t feel like riding my bike!”

 

Most parents with school-age children can probably nod in recognition of the above situation. A situation where the inner dialogue alternates between frantic parental care and the voice of reason. Between worries about wind, weather and traffic conditions and the certainty that little eight-year-old Sofus might actually be better off walking or cycling to school.

 

It is precisely such situations that Plangruppen – with support from the GF Foundation’s Traffic Prize – will try to shape with their new project, Sund Skolevej. By removing some of the traffic concerns that both children and their parents grapple with, the project will get more families out of the car and onto the bike, benefiting both traffic safety, learning ability and the child’s health.

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- Although Denmark is one of the world's leading cycling countries and is among the best countries in the world when it comes to road safety, there is still potential for more active transport on the way to school. Many children get too little exercise in their daily lives, and the way to school can contribute to making children more active. But it all starts with the parents, who are the ones who ultimately choose whether to send their children to school on either two or four wheels, says Lars Lindenberg, director of Plangruppen, which is behind the project.

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Good habits are established early.
For the GF Foundation, which has chosen to support the Healthy School Road project with its national traffic award, there is no doubt that the project has great potential. In particular, the fact that the project focuses on helping children develop good traffic habits early in life is highlighted by Lars Binderup Larsen, chairman of the GF Foundation's Traffic Award Committee, senior physician at the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at Odense University Hospital and member of the Danish Accident Investigation Board for traffic accidents:

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- There are many advantages to active transport - especially for children. Children who transport themselves develop better, are more ready to learn and are generally healthier than children who are driven to school every day. It is important to establish good habits early, and we believe that the Healthy School Road project can greatly contribute to this. As an added bonus, active school transport helps to reduce traffic density around schools and thus increase traffic safety. And if traffic safety is better, there may be even more children who walk or cycle to school. It becomes a positive circle, he says and points to another important factor that has made the selection easy:

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- One of the most important parameters when we select projects is that they must have the potential to promote traffic safety throughout Denmark – and not just in a single small local area. And it must be said that Sund Skolevej has that. The improvements that are being initiated in the pilot municipalities can easily be transferred to the rest of the country.

 

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