What is the maximum distance to school?
Mobility: Two kilometers on foot, four kilometers by bike: that's how far children and young people commute to secondary schools on average.
Mobility: Two kilometers on foot, four kilometers by bike: that's how far children and young people commute to secondary schools on average.
In most federal states, children are assigned an elementary school in their school district when they start school. After the fourth grade, they are usually allowed to choose a secondary school. One factor in the decision for many parents and children is the journey to school, says psychologist Christian Müller from the Medical-Psychological Institute of TÜV NORD in Cologne.
Can the child walk or cycle to school? One advantage of this is being independent of the bus, train or parents' cab. The other is the exercise itself. Schoolchildren should be physically active for an hour a day. But only a minority manage this. The probability increases if the child regularly walks or cycles to school. At German schools, however, this is not even the case for half of older children, as representative samples show.
Sports scientist Anne Reimers, now a professor at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, has analyzed data from several thousand schoolchildren with various teams. According to the study, between the ages of 11 and 17, just under a fifth walk and just under a quarter cycle. In contrast, almost 50 percent of girls and 42 percent of boys use public transport. In rural areas in particular, young people walk and cycle comparatively rarely - the distances are often too great.
Distances to school are usually much longer in rural areas
A team led by Anne Reimers 2023 found that the distances to school were shortest in cities at around four kilometers on average and longest in rural areas at ten kilometers, so it's no wonder that many people there prefer to use motorized vehicles. Each mode of transport corresponded to a typical distance: those who walked to school covered an average distance of just under two kilometers; those who cycled covered just under four kilometers. For public transport, it was almost ten kilometers, for other motorized means of transport around eight kilometers.
But when is it too far? This was investigated in a study in Ireland at more than 60 schools across the country. Most of the 15 to 17-year-olds surveyed who walked no more than 2.4 kilometers, and most of those who cycled no more than 4 kilometers. With every mile (1.6 kilometers), the proportion of those who walked or cycled to school fell by 70 percent. From a distance of 4.8 kilometers, only less than 20 percent walked or cycled.
Christian Müller from TÜV NORD also draws the line at this distance. “Two to three kilometers on foot or four by bike are generally reasonable.” For longer distances, it depends on the route and the child. Is the route on roads or on separate cycle paths? How fit and careful is the child? “The prerequisite is always that they have passed their cycling test in the fourth year of school,” warns the psychologist. “Only then should they ride a bike on their own.”
At this age - from their 10th birthday - they are no longer allowed to cycle on the sidewalk, but must use the cycle path or road. However, the insurers' accident research team warns that the awareness of danger is not yet fully developed at the age of ten. For example, some children are not yet able to put themselves in the shoes of other road users and correctly assess the speed of vehicles.
This also poses a risk for children on foot. According to accident research by insurers, the most dangerous time is always when they are crossing a road: Around 86 percent of mistakes made by children on foot on the way to school happen here. They should therefore take detours if necessary in order to be able to use traffic lights and crosswalks. But whether with or without traffic lights, before they are sent off on their own, they must learn to always look right and left to make sure that the road is clear or that all vehicles have stopped.
“Parents should practise with their children in real road traffic until they reliably make the right decisions,” recommends Christian Müller from TÜV NORD. Young people should also be reminded again and again to observe the traffic rules and not to be distracted by conversations or cell phones. However, this is no less true for parents themselves, says the psychologist: “Adults should always set a good example.”
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