How to obtain a healthy journey to school

Danish children walk and cycle a lot and at the same time have one of the best child road safety records in the western part of world. Based on several studies, the paper describes how Denmark has obtained a good child road safety and why Danish children choose to walk and cycle. Child road safety has predominantly been improved due to higher seat belt use and many implemented local safety measures such as campaigns and physical safe routes to school projects. It is mostly safe routes to school projects that include speed reducing measures and signalisation of junctions that are successful. The distance from home to school is an important factor in children's transport mode choice. Since about half of Danish children have less than 1.5 km to school the decentralised school structure with many fairly small schools is an important reason to the many walking and bicycle journeys. Road design and motorised traffic volumes do influence children's mode choice, but to a rather limited extent. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.