MORE than two in three Australian children and teenagers will be driven to their school gates when term one commences next week, a new survey suggests.
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The figures showed that while more than 50 per cent of parents believed it was important that children be able to walk to school without an adult, fewer than one-third believed it was safe for them to do so.
Some 64 per cent of parents reported driving their school-aged children to school most days, found the national survey of 2012 adults, roughly half of whom were parents living with their children.
Across the states, NSW had the highest proportion of parents who said there was too much traffic on the roads for their children to walk to school (69 per cent).
When asked if it was safe to walk to school alone, 20 per cent of parents strongly disagreed and 25 per cent disagreed, found the survey conducted by the Heart Foundation's LiveLighter campaign.
Almost 60 per cent of parents said their children's schools were too far to walk or cycle, and 35 per cent said time was a factor.
