Forum Topic

Children in ULEZ more likely to walk or cycle

A new study has been published which finds that children living in ULEZ are twice as likely to switch to walking and cycling to school and being advantaged by the resulting health benefits.  A few excerpts from the summary: "Among children who took inactive modes at baseline, 42% of children in London and 20% of children in Luton switched to active modes."
"Implementation of clean air zones can increase uptake of active travel to school and was particularly associated with more sustainable and active travel in children living further from school."
"Motorised vehicle use negatively impacts health throughout life, influencing children's physical activity, sedentary behaviour, and contributing to diseases like childhood asthma linked to air pollution. Regular physical activity, crucial for children's healthy growth and mental well-being [1, 2], also plays a vital role in preventing the development of obesity [3], prevalent in 23% of children aged 10–11 in 2022 [4]."
https://ijbnpa.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12966-024-01621-7 As motorised vehicle use negatively impact health throughout life it is never too late for anybody to switch to more active modes and get healthier so think about that next time you jump in the car and drive less than two miles to the shops or to drop your kids at school. And definitely think about the negative impact on your kids of driving them around Chiswick.  For some strange reason this study is driving right wing commentators and their dimwitted followers a bit loopy on the internet but I am sure the people of Chiswick are not so fragile ...

Paul Campbell ● 43d45 Comments

I find it abhorrent that parents give up their children to childcare. What happened to nurturing your children at least until they go to primary school and then, perhaps the parent can get a part time morning job. It’s just greed that parents want to hand over their children to strangers so that they can opt out of parenting responsibilities and go out to work. It’s nonsense. If you have children you parent them yourself and stop whinging to the State about funding and childcare.  Of everyone we know, not one gave up their children to childcare. And that doesn’t mean the woman stayed at home to care for the children. Many of our friends decided that the father would take they role. But not a single couple decided that both parents would work.

Steve Taylor ● 38d

Stop making excuses. Loss if a prt time job surely means more time to toilet train and teach the use of cutlery.

N V Brooks ● 38d

So you have failed to notice how many part-time jobs have disappeared?  How many banks and building societies have closed and how many supermarkets are staffed only by machines? These are some of the part-time jobs that working mothers ie carers of children and also carers of the disabled and elderly found they could fit around their caring responsibilities.Just look at the numbers of young people who are unable to find work and affordable housing near to their parents! That makes it more difficult to be able to take advantage of parents for help with childcare.  It can also be very hard to find childcare places in nurseries too and they are of no use whatsoever when a child is ill.

Philippa Bond ● 38d

Yes, I wasn’t talking about a child wetting himself, I was referring to children misbehaving!!

Steve Taylor ● 38d

I don't think wetting himself was misbehaving, he obviously had a problem.

Janice Evans ● 38d

If the children behaved there was no fear of being shamed.

Steve Taylor ● 38d

I'm pleased that shaming a child is illegal now, it was not nice for those witnessing it either.

Janice Evans ● 39d

Shaming the child is illegal now. Teachers can’t even tell a child to stop talking or behave if other children can hear the reprimand. The child has to be taken aside and ‘spoken to’ in private.

Steve Taylor ● 40d

They turn to social media and complain. Normally, some bleeding heart comes along and blames someone other than the parents without ever understanding what trauma or background issues cause the problem.  Casigating or isolating the child hasn't happened in my memory and the school, playing social worker again, will try to uncover the cause.

N V Brooks ● 40d

I remember in infant school a boy used to wet himself and the teacher would make him stand on his chair, as a small child it was quite distressing to see another child treated in this way, I wonder how they deal with it now.

Janice Evans ● 40d

“ it is a bit late for you to be suggesting that they don't have kids - since they already have them!  ”Don’t be so silly. These people already know that life is tough for them when they do the deed to produce children. They do it with the full expectation, if not hid given right, that they won’t have to take responsibility for their offspring because the State will take over and do it fir them. And people like you encourage them and they drain the State. It’s abhorrent.

Steve Taylor ● 40d

"It’s abhorrent that these people expect school staff to toilet train their kids. If life is so tough for these lazy people, they shouldn’t have children."It's abhorrent that you show so little understanding - and it is a bit late for you to be suggesting that they don't have kids - since they already have them!  Why take it put on the kids?  If you are made to work then you probably will have no choice but to leave that child with someone else.  Surely it would be better to ensure that more attention was paid to education and opportunity to inspire alternative careers - are there any?  Of course that may mean your carers in your old age are robots which may be a good thing as you can be so rude and objectionable now.

Philippa Bond ● 41d

A lack of money, of course, has absolutely nothing to do with the failure of parents to toilet train their children, just another excuse.

N V Brooks ● 41d

My niece is a teacher and says that they have to spend an awful lot of time pn pastoral care and being social workers.  They have many children who are in temporary accommodation.  Some manage to get to school but it must be difficult for those having to move school because the only home they can find is far from friends and family support.Just because you have money at one time in your life doesn't mean you always will!

Philippa Bond ● 41d

N V is 100% correct

Steve Taylor ● 41d

Total and utter bollocks.Both paents have worked in households for generations.Stop making excuses for poor parenting, that's all it is. If you can't manage to toilet train a child(assuming that they do not have additional needs and the sheer volume of nappy and pull-up wearing brats would suggest not) or teach them not to shovel food with their hands rather than use cutlery then you should think long and hard before having children.I am fed up with pandering to these inadequates, the children are not to blame, the 'parents' most definitely are.

N V Brooks ● 41d

What nonsense.  Nobody forces anybody to read anybody’s posts.  But unlike you I find it valuable to read posts from people I disagree with.  One learns a lot.

Alastair Banton ● 41d

Nobody forces you to read my posts Banton. Get over your intrigue snowflake.

Steve Taylor ● 41d

Oh stop it, Taylor.  You are so happy to blame people, so unwilling to show any understanding of circumstances.  It’s very boring.

Alastair Banton ● 41d

Stop making excuses for lazy, irresponsible parents. It’s abhorrent that these people expect school staff to toilet train their kids. If life is so tough for these lazy people, they shouldn’t have children.

Steve Taylor ● 41d

With two salaries and NI now needed to live on it isn't as easy as it was when a stay at home mother could give consistency and routine to a small child's life and was able to toilet train a small child.  It is always easier in the summer and if you have a garden.  It doesn't help that dIsposable nappies have also greatly improved in comfort so much that children aren't as bothered as they used to be by a soggy wet terry towelling one and so often won't let needing the loo interfere with what they are doing.

Philippa Bond ● 41d

A very nature contribution, Hall. I guess you are one of those whose parents didn’t train to wipe their own bum.

Steve Taylor ● 42d

It is truly embarrassing though what can you do if people don't care.

Mark Frost ● 42d

Hardly John. I know so many teachers ranging from NQTs to long established education professionals who are aghast at the numbers of children presenting for school without basic social skills or even toilet training.

N V Brooks ● 42d

For all that education in your family Steve, you sure do sounds like a Mail Online comment bot.

John Hall ● 42d

As a family of educationalists in both state and private sector, as well as higher education, I am aware of the the astonishing number of children whose parents take NO responsibility in preparing them for school. It is now ‘expected as a right’ for school staff to take over parenting responsibilities. There are also statistics of kids who lost the ability to use a knife and fork when they couldn’t go to school during Covid because they didn’t have teaching assistants and dinner ladies to help them. It’s disgraceful. This lack of basic parenting is also the reason why so many teachers become disillusioned and leave the profession. They didn’t study for years and years to end up wiping kids bums.

Steve Taylor ● 42d

That Steve can come later. The sheer number starting school in nappies would surprise you as would the number attending with empty stomachs. Not through poverty but through sheer parental idleness in the belief that 'the school will deal with that". Ask any primary teacher.

N V Brooks ● 43d

“All they need to do now is give them breakfast and toilet train them”Hahaha. That ain’t gonna happen. They haven’t even been taught to use a knife and fork properly.

Steve Taylor ● 43d

"All they need to do now is give them breakfast and toilet train them, then schools can actually get on with the job of education."And so, the children of ULEZ shall rise up.

Mark Frost ● 43d

The survey is about the original ULEZ not the extension. It will be interesting to see the differences when similar surveys are carried out in future years. The level of change in this survey is too high to deny any causal link. I changed my car and driving habits dramatically when the original ULEZ came in and friends did the same. It was a nudge effect to change attitudes and behaviours for the better for sure. It brings home the negative consequences of poor choices.

Paul Campbell ● 43d

Perhaps ULEZ has had some effect.However, declaring car free streets around many schools in Ealing has meant that it is simply not worth drving half a mile (often less) to then walk half a mile (often less). Great not to see nose-to-tail cars, often badly parked, dropping off their owner's charges. Exemptions are in place for children with additional needs. So, we have parents  actually hauling their sorry backsides out in time to get their kids to school. All they need to do now is give them breakfast and toilet train them, then schools can actually get on with the job of education.

N V Brooks ● 43d

Clearly getting children away from cars to more active travel to and from school is a good thing for many reasons.  The more difficult question is whether the existence of ULEZ or more investment within the ULEZ in cycling infrastructure has encouraged the change.  Even if we accept the conclusion that it was the mere existence of the ULEZ is the reason then we have to ask why ULEZ has made that change because it could be for positive or negative reasons:What we really need now is a follow up survey to understand why children switched to active travel - that is key to future policy because the reality is that ULEZ will become steadily less important over the next decades as society switches to EVs

Justin Stephenson ● 43d

Yes I would agree with you.

Steve Taylor ● 43d

This survey suggested that ‘The introduction of ULEZ was associated with positive changes in how children travelled to school, with a much larger number of children moving from inactive to active modes of transport in London than in Luton.  Given children’s heightened vulnerability to air pollution and the critical role of physical activity for their health and development, financial disincentives for car use could encourage healthier travel habits among this young population, even if they do not necessarily target them.’I question the suggested causal link between more walking to school and ‘financial disincentives for car use’ as I suspect the imposition of the wider ULEZ resulted in most people upgrading their cars rather than doing without one, which in turn suggests that people are purposely refusing to use their new vehicles for the school run and making Johnny/Joanna walk, which I doubt.Increased walking is more likely to be the result of parallel school-based campaigns, independent of ULEZ, to discourage the school run and to encourage pupils to walk or cycle to school.Admittedly, this might be easier to achieve if people think the overall quality of London’s air post-ULEZ has improved so their children can more safely be exposed to it, but I’m not convinced by the 'financial disincentive for car use' argument.

Peter Evans ● 43d

Well you would be miserable if you are constantly dodging morons cycling on pavements.

Steve Taylor ● 43d

There is the classic "freedom to" and "freedom from" dichotomy.Certainly more apparent in the US with freedom to carry a gun, freedom to drive being more important than, say, freedom from large medical bills, freedom from being forced to get a car because of no other alternatives.

Michael Robinson ● 43d

That is interesting Michael. I think some people just have far too pessimistic a view of their fellow citizens. These children are learning about climate change, pollution, the benefits of healthy and active lifestyles and events like ULEZ can be triggers for a bit of soul-searching on the part of morally responsible parents to make better choices for how their families live. Also some people are still wedded to the idea that cars represent prosperity and freedom. Actually in the centre of global cities like London and New York cars are no longer universally perceived like this. They are an expensive bind and when people do away with them they experience more freedom and they certainly have more money to spend on other things. It is a sign of further progress towards a more civilised existence when more families eschew cars for local journeys in cities.

Paul Campbell ● 43d

However they are travelling everyone  looks very miserable.

Janice Evans ● 43d

I'm sure very few people will think of their own journeys as discretionary.However, a large number of journeys are habitual.  People are creatures of habit and in the same circumstances, will tend to do the same thing.  This is just human nature.  People do many things sub-consciously so they don't need to spend lots of brain power thinking.Something like ULEZ plus many other events in life (new job, moving home, a road being closed as part of a LTN scheme...) may force a re-evaluation of a habit and change of behaviour, and maybe a new habit.This may not be easy as habits can be comfortable.

Michael Robinson ● 43d

It's a really good point. The use of a flat charge means that a wealthy driver's unnecessary journey will be made but a less well-off driver's essential journey becomes unviable. If road pricing is to be introduced it needs to be more sophisticated. A genuinely fair system probably won't be possible until every vehicle in London has a GPS tracker and pricing of each journey can be determine using a range of criteria.

Jeremy Parkinson ● 43d

“that would mean targeting larger not older cars and discretionary not necessary journeys.”Ah, but there’s the rub … one person’s necessary journey is another person’s essential journey. How can you possibly determine which is which?There are some journeys that a majority of people would consider to be discretionary, and others that would be considered necessary, but plenty in between.

Andrew Jones ● 43d

I don’t  read Cambell’s posts because history has proved that he just spews vitriol. Assume from your reply that nothing has changed and that he is abusive as ever?    Don’t feed the TROLL!

Steve Taylor ● 43d

"For some strange reason this study is driving right wing commentators and their dimwitted followers a bit loopy on the internet.."I guess that could explain the loopiness of your posts, Humpty.

Richard Greenhough ● 43d

Another thread to delibrataly antagonize and then throw words around because one knows exactly whats coming next. Its not whats good in a post,its what one is deliberately waiting for in reply

Julian Pavey ● 43d

While I'd wholeheartedly endorse the message on the health benefits of active travel and would say that overall ULEZ has been a success, it might be worth considering what is behind the trends identified in this study.It isn't very likely that some families have suddenly started to walk children to school because they believe air quality has massively improved. Even the strongest advocates of ULEZ would acknowledge the benefits are marginal overall and the main reduction is in Nitrogen Dioxide which most people get a larger exposure to in their kitchen than they would by the busiest road.The only credible explanation for the level of the switch is that many of the families in the London schools did not have a ULEZ compliant vehicle and didn't want to pay the daily charge. This to me highlights the main drawback of ULEZ - it tended to target less well off families.Of course some of the people who switched will have been plain lazy and it was entirely to their and their child's benefit that they were forced to walk them to school. However, many will have been people working long shifts juggling home and work life with very little time. Some will have children with special needs for whom the walk to school was additionally challenging and some may have lived in areas where the walk was dangerous.When you take into account the money that ULEZ has made available to public transport which at worst has helped arrest decline, we have all benefitted from it. Going forward London is going to see more traffic as its population grows so ways to mitigate this have to be introduced. Hopefully future schemes will avoid the errors of ULEZ and avoid falling disproportionately heavily on the less well off - that would mean targeting larger not older cars and discretionary not necessary journeys.

Jeremy Parkinson ● 43d