Addressing child pedestrian injury? The geography of walking school buses in Auckland, New Zealand

In the face of mounting concern at traffic congestion in the vicinity of schools and the associated risks of child pedestrian injury, the 'walking school bus' (WSB) idea, which was pioneered in England, has been rapidly adopted within metropolitan Auckland. WSBs involve volunteers guiding children to and from school in an orderly manner along established walking routes. This paper reports on a survey of the 34 Auckland primary school communities that had adopted the scheme by November 2002. Despite rates of child pedestrian injury being concentrated in areas of socioeconomic deprivation, our survey found WSB developments highly clustered in relatively privileged neighbourhoods. The inequitable socio-spatial distribution of WSBs in Auckland suggests that the ability to respond to road safety issues is closely correlated with socioeconomic privilege. While the respondents identified a number of individual and community health benefits accruing from their initiatives, the authors conclude that WSBs cannot be relied upon to address a number of broader public health challenges, such as effecting positive change in driver behaviour, or shifting the priorities of the urban political system towards reducing both 'accidents' and victim-blaming.