Story: City children and youth

One response to the ‘cotton-wool kids’ phenomenon – where parents seek to protect children from all danger – has been the introduction of ‘walking buses’, where groups of children walk to school under the supervision of an adult. Students are picked up outside their homes and use the time to socialise and learn road safety. Walking buses began in Auckland in 1999, and in 2007 there were 200 routes at 91 schools, saving 2,045 car trips per day. Here pupils from Wymondley Road School, in Ōtara, Auckland, make their way home, in 2007.