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A comment on Why Japanese Kids Can Walk to School Alone. Parent comment

Re:Why Japanese Kids Can Walk to School Alone by kuschku on Saturday October 10, 2015 @06:30PM (#10367239)
I’m now 19, I grew up in Germany, and I was never mugged or anything – there were some people who jumped in front of my bike to annoy me, but never actual muggings. Nothing of my stuff has ever been stolen.

And as kids, even just 5, we walked to the bakery and bought bread rolls for the family breakfast.

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Re:Why Japanese Kids Can Walk to School Alone by muhmi on Saturday October 10, 2015 @06:45PM (#10367288)
+1 Its the same in Finland. Now my kids walk to school every day.
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Re:Why Japanese Kids Can Walk to School Alone by kuschku on Saturday October 10, 2015 @07:53PM (#10367462)
Obviously. Often kids start to have to walk to primary school here with 6, so they start to walk alone to library, bakery, etc with 5.

And when they start to have to use public transit to get to secondary school with 10 every day, it makes sense that they start by going shopping or similar places with 8/9 by bus/metro/etc.

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Re:Why Japanese Kids Can Walk to School Alone by Symbiote on Saturday October 10, 2015 @10:16PM (#10367764)
What's the furthest you reckon they walk?

I was driven to school, though I walked 250m to a neighbours house half the time for the lift. Walking to school would have taken over half an hour at a good, adult pace.

(The fear was probably traffic more than strangers.)

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Re:Why Japanese Kids Can Walk to School Alone by kuschku on Saturday October 10, 2015 @10:40PM (#10367824)
My elementary school was 1.4km away, the nearest bakery was like 800m, the grocery store was next to the bakery, the library was next to the school.

From 10 on I had to go to a secondary school which was 4.5km away, so I usually used the bike, but walked sometimes. At that age I also started using the bus to get to the other side of the city, or to take the bike and go to a cinema 12km away with friends, etc.

We obviously had almost no traffic here – except for busses and bikes. And construction vehicles.

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