Top parental concerns

According to an article on page A14 of the AJC on 5/11/25 referring to an Emory University study, the top 5 parental concerns in Georgia are 

1. Education and school quality (39%)
2. Social media use/experiences (34%)
3. Bullying (32%)
4. Gun violence (27%)
5. Mental health and suicide (25%)

(percentages do not add to 100 because the top three concerns of each parent are counted)

It was noteworthy to me that automobiles were not on this list. So I wanted to consider both how dangerous driving is versus other risks, and why parents would not list it in their survey responses.

 

Risks of Driving to Children

First I looked at fatalities. Death is relatively well documented both because of its severity and because it lends itself to better data collection. A child may be injured with no paper trail, but with rare exceptions our society tracks every human death. In particular, Georgia reviews child fatalities so that we can do our best to prevent further tragedies. According to the 2023 Georgia Child Fatality Review Panel (direct link to pdf), the leading cause of unintentional death for children are motor vehicle collisions (MVC). 

For many years MVC was the leading cause of non-medical deaths of children, and homicides have risen since 2020 to roughly the same level as MVC. 

Then I looked for non-fatal injuries. I was not able to find as precise counts for injuries for children in Georgia. However, this study from 2003 for all US children should be reflective of overall risks, and specifically non-fatal injury related emergency department visits (IEDV): Differential ranking of causes of fatal versus non-fatal
injuries among US children. 

There are six causes of IEDV greater than "MV traffic occupant". It's unclear how serious injuries were depending on cause. However, the number of fatalities for that category, 1,700, dwarfs the number for all causes with a greater number of injuries. The prevalence of fatalities implies that even non-fatal injuries from crashes are relatively serious on average compared to injuries in other categories.

 

Furthermore, this category is limited to children who were a "traffic occupant" at a time of their injury. Children who were hit by a driver while outside of a vehicle could be classified as either pedestrian or pedal cyclist.

Beyond those injuries from motor vehicle crashes that send children to the emergency room, many children suffer respiratory ailments such as asthma due to proximity to vehicle emissions.  The American Lung Association has given Atlanta a failing grade for air quality, probably due largely to all of the intensely trafficked urban highways cutting up our city. This risk is particularly large for children in Sandy Springs because many schools in Sandy Springs are situated right beside major highways. 

 

Children are not only passive bystanders or victims on our roads. Minors are frequently licensed to drive. At they same time they, e.g., are not able to enter into contracts because our society has decided they are not mature enough to understand that responsibility. The safe operation of two or three tons of metal at speeds that no human experienced until a couple hundred years ago is also a challenge for these young people. Therefore, we see them crash far more often per mile driven than adult drivers,

Of course it's understandable why many parents who have the option chose to let their children drive. Children need to get places in our car dependent society, just like adults do. That pressure to drive is itself cause for concern.

 

Not tracked in any statistic is how many children would want to ride a bike or walk down a sidewalk, but aren't allowed to. Parents know that a second of childish behavior (or realistically, even perfect rule following behavior) could lead to a driver injuring or killing the child. How much happier and healthier would kids be if they could play outside more often? What if they could learn to travel through the world without being strapped into a car seat?

Why do Georgia's parents not consider this a major problem?

The AJC should, if anything, be more concerned with this question than the underlying risks of driving. As the largest newspaper in the state, the AJC sets a tone. It focuses on problems that its management considers serious. It has multiple regular columns giving guidance and sympathy to drivers and automotive consumers. Articles are frequently written from the perspective of drivers. There is some respectable transit coverage, but it is clearly not a paper written for people who depend on transit, sidewalks, bikes, etc., to live their daily lives.

 

If the AJC took car culture seriously as a combination of policy and lifestyle choices with benefits and also serious costs, including risks particularly to children, then more parents would take it seriously. This study reveals that the AJC has a gap in its coverage.

 

-Vladimir