I personally would agree with author of the post. However, the author is saying "it's not dangerous to do this", as opposed to "it is a basic human right to do this". He is also asserting that the opposing view is not supported by the facts (it's "fact free").

That's all fine. But then the author presents statistics he's gathered, none of which really strongly support his case. And in fact, I would not be surprised if you could cherry pick statistics to support either case.

It would be better to either:

1. Find better statistics. 2. Not present poor statistics, and then say "look here this supports my argument", when it doesn't.

Or at least, apply caveats to the data...

But if you are suggesting that the decision should be fact based and present an argument with supporting statistics. Then those statistics should be relevant to your argument.

The statistics presented in the article were not relevant. If it is not dangerous, it should be possible to show this with data... the data presented in the article is poor and doesn't support his case well.

> And the odds of your child being kidnapped by a stranger on the bus? Incredibly long. A 2003 study in Canada found just one case nationwide of a stranger abducting a child, in the entire two years prior.

I personally found the article very compelling. This kind of mindless fear, in direct contradiction of clear evidence, makes my blood boil.

Without knowing if, and how many children rode the bus alone, this information is not meaningful.

It's an old article, from 2013. It states that:

"Police statistics show 25 children of the 46,718 reported missing in 2011 listed as "abducted by stranger."

And then goes on to show that in the majority of cases that the abductor was known to the parents.

So, the useful dataset would be.

* How many of the children were abducted with unsupervised?

* In the Canadian population how many children in total are left unsupervised regularly.

From that we could calculate:

Percentage of children left unsupervised regularly who are abducted.

Percentage of children not left unsupervised regularly who are abducted.

Of course, correlation != causation. But if there is no difference between the two populations then that would tell us something. However, there isn't enough data in the article to make this assertion.

If no (or very few) children are left unsupervised in Canada, then the statistic isn't relevant to calculating the probability of unsupervised (or lone traveling) children being abducted is it?

Or a lack of unsupervised children?

I don't know. I think you're probably correct. But really the assertion would be might stronger if there was more than anecdotal evidence to back it up.

This is what I'm trying to say the data presented in the article, is on the level of anecdotal evidence. Which, tends to weaken the argument rather than strengthen it.

So the population of unsupervised children riding buses might be 10? or 100? or 1000000? we don't know.

1 in 10 would be high, though given the limited size of the dataset, possibly not very statistically relevant.

It seems doubtful that this is a very useful dataset.

Are you suggesting chasing accuracy in a fraction of a fraction?

> One incident in two years, out of a population of tens of millions

I'm pointing out that overall population is not relevant.

The "fraction of a fraction" is the ratio of children who ride the bus alone, and get abducted. It seems that is relevant information when trying to contextualize the danger in allowing a child to ride a bus alone.

Is the risk of robbery intolerably awful, or have we become unreasonably timid? I think that America (and to a significant extent Canada) is still in the throes of zero tolerance culture, where any risk is intolerable and any action to mitigate risk is justified.

Two kids get into a scuffle at school? Expel them both. Don't worry about what happens to those kids, don't worry about who started the fight, don't worry about the chilling effect on normal childhood behaviour, because we have zero tolerance for violence. The war on drugs, the war on terror, the broken window theory, mandatory minimum sentences, three-strike laws, the criminalization of poverty, the school-to-prison pipeline. When the only acceptable rate of crime is zero, the ends always justify the means.

https://www.brennancenter.org/publication/crime-trends1990-2...

Which commonly takes the form of "If you can't afford X then you shouldn't be doing Y"

Robbery much harder and often unreported or reported as bullying.

Robbery/theft/assault etc. seems like the ones you'd actually care about. Murders and kidnappings of children by strangers are so rare that any data about them is essentially meaningless.

Or maybe they try something stupid (we all did stupid things as kids and I don't expect my kids to be smarter than I was) and wind up drowning in the river or falling off something.

But why?

Is it common for them to be hit by cars?

Is it safer for them to go to school with parents?

And if someone hits you while you are trying to protect your kid, is it less traumatic?

And if while you take them to school you hit someone else's kid, is it less traumatic?

Is it common for kids to drown or fall and die while parents are not there?

From what I see it is common for adults to drown while they're trying to save someone else (usually not kids, but other adults)

If you start thinking about everything that _could_ happen, you wouldn't let your kids go out

Kids spend a lot of time alone and still they manage to survive

Why going to school should be any different?

2) Compare say multiple person being in a vehicular accidents when one is a child. Also make sure to include a reduction in car crashes including a child as some of those would become pedestrians. (Data is also available, but no idea how many kids would walk.) School busses exist and work.

3, 4) Stats are not readily available.

5) Stats are available, most of those happen near the parents anyway. Essentially negligence with very small kids or stupidity like having kids near unguarded aquifers or drops. Such areas are rare in cities.

Fear of your kid being hit by a car is just perception

driving them to school with the false sense of security that when they are with their parents kids are safer is more dangerous

However, driving the kids to school is probably no better than them just going on their own looking at stats of car crashes with kids involved.

Anyway, as expected, parents tend to behave highly irrationally when safety of their own children is involved.

According to CDC it's the second most common cause of accidental injury death among children aged 5-14 (after being in a car crash)

The post I was replying to specifically said he's scared that his kid could be hit by a car when going to school on his own

It's fairly obvious that accidents are the most common cause of death for kids My point is that parent supervision don't protect them from being hit or end up in a car crash or fall down from a bridge

p.s.: main cause doesn't mean it is common I believe it's not very common, it's catastrophic for their young body when it happens, but not common

In actual cities the rates should be lower as roads are not mixed with recreational or pedestrian areas as much, at least in Europe. It is still the leading cause though. (WHO has good data.)

Quite a few accidents are also caused by biking...

This is precisely where are now.

http://southpark.wikia.com/wiki/Child_Abduction_is_Not_Funny

>Or maybe they try something stupid

that's the fastest way to become smart in my experience. humans are remarkably adept at not dying and even ballsy kids can judge their competence well enough if they're given the opportunity to learn their limits.

Usually losing a kid is due untreatable diseases and bad parenting (like driving them to school without taking proper safety measures and suffer the consequences of an accident)

There's no evidence that going to school alone is more dangerous than staying home with grandpa's guns

Obviously, if you're using it to set policy, some kind of study would be valuable.