For many Hackney parents, driving children to school can feel like the easiest option. It may seem quicker, safer and more convenient than walking or cycling, particularly when mornings are busy and the weather is poor.

But when lots of families make the same choice, the consequences are felt by everyone, including the children being driven.

In Hackney, around 27% of primary school children are estimated to be driven to school according to the Solve the School Run school travel data. Across London, that represents around 200,000 primary pupils making journeys by car every day, generating an estimated 480,000 car trips. The school run is not a small source of traffic: it is one of the things that makes our streets busiest at precisely the time when children are arriving at school. (Solve the School Run)

And the effects go well beyond the school gates.

The school run adds to congestion

Every morning, thousands of journeys converge on schools across London. In Hackney, school drop-off and pick-up account for around 30% of morning-peak car driver trips according to Transport for London data. (London City Hall)

This creates a vicious circle. More cars mean slower roads, which means longer journeys for everyone. Buses get stuck in traffic. Tradespeople spend longer getting between jobs. Deliveries take longer. Cyclists face more road danger. And emergency vehicles have to navigate roads that are increasingly congested.

A journey that might be quite manageable by car when roads are quiet can become frustrating and time-consuming when hundreds of other families are doing exactly the same thing.

The irony is that driving children to school creates the very traffic conditions that make the school journey feel unsafe in the first place.

Children need exercise, and so do parents

Walking or cycling to school is an easy way to build physical activity into the day without having to find extra time for exercise.

Children don't necessarily need to be taken to a sports club to get their daily activity. A walk to school, a cycle ride or even walking part of the journey can become a regular and enjoyable part of everyday life. This is particularly important in Hackney where childhood obesity rates are very high: 25% of year 6 are classified as “obese”, partly due to a lack of exercise.

And the same applies to parents.

The new Transport for London Walking and Wheeling Action Plan explicitly recognises that walking is one of the easiest ways to build physical activity into everyday life. TfL is aiming to make it easier and safer for more children to walk to school, while expanding School Streets and supporting boroughs to create neighbourhoods where walking is an easier choice. (Transport for London)

Why drive somewhere to exercise later when you can build some exercise into the journey you're already making?

The journey is valuable time together

The school journey is not just a way of getting from A to B.

Walking to school gives parents and children time to talk without the distractions of phones, homework or household chores. Children can tell you about their day ahead.

Parents can find out what is happening in their child's life.

And children walking together can meet friends along the way.

A journey on foot or by bike or scooter is part of childhood. It gives children opportunities to explore their neighbourhood, recognise familiar faces, notice what is happening around them and gradually develop confidence in navigating their local area.

In a car, much of this experience disappears behind a windscreen.

Rain isn't a reason to stay indoors

One of the less obvious benefits of walking and cycling is that children learn something important: you can still get where you need to go when the weather isn't perfect.

It rains in Britain. Sometimes it's cold. Sometimes it's windy.

With the right clothes, none of this needs to prevent a walk or cycle ride.

Learning this as a child can help create a much healthier attitude towards active travel. Walking and cycling aren't activities that are only possible when the sun is shining. They are normal ways of getting around.

What sort of relationship with cars do we want children to have?

Children learn by watching adults.

If the normal routine is to get into a car whenever we need to go somewhere, it is easy for

children to grow up assuming that driving is simply what you do.

But most journeys in a place like Hackney don't have to be made by car.

Children who grow up walking, cycling and using public transport are more likely to understand that there are lots of ways of getting around. They develop skills and confidence that can give them greater independence later in life.

That matters because the aim shouldn't be to make children dependent on their parents' cars for as long as possible. It should be to help them become confident, independent people who can get around for themselves.

Being inside a car doesn't protect children from air pollution

It is easy to assume that putting children inside a car protects them from the polluted air outside.

Unfortunately, it isn't that simple.

Traffic pollution doesn't stay outside the vehicle. A car stuck in a queue of traffic may be surrounded by exhaust emissions from the vehicles immediately in front and alongside it. Exhaust fumes and particles from surrounding traffic enters the cabin through the ventilation system, while pollution can also enter when windows are open. Research shows that concentrations of some traffic-related pollutants can be higher inside vehicle cabins than in the surrounding urban environment. (ScienceDirect)

The GLA’s review found that drivers and passengers can experience substantial exposure to traffic-related air pollution, and that exposure inside vehicles is often underestimated. (London City Hall)

The real answer isn't to put more children inside cars. It's to have fewer polluting vehicles on our streets in the first place.

That would mean cleaner air for children walking to school, children inside cars, teachers, parents and everyone else who lives, works or travels in Hackney.

More cars make the roads more dangerous

Perhaps the most important problem with driving children to school is that it makes the school environment less safe for everybody else.

Parents dropping children off can create queues, U-turns, parking on pavements, doors opening into cycle lanes and unpredictable manoeuvres around school entrances.

Children walking or cycling are particularly vulnerable.

This creates another vicious circle: parents see the traffic around the school and conclude that walking or cycling is too dangerous, so they drive their children. The additional cars then make walking and cycling even less attractive.

Driving isn't free

There is also a straightforward financial argument.

Cars cost money to run: fuel, insurance, servicing, repairs, tax, depreciation and parking all add up. (Link to blog post about cost of cars)

For a family making a short journey to school every day, walking or cycling can eliminate a surprisingly large number of car miles over the course of a year.

And unlike driving, walking and cycling don't require parents to pay for the privilege of getting some exercise.

The school run can be a burden on parents too

It is easy to think of driving children to school as something parents simply have to do.

But it can impose a significant burden on family life.

Every school day, someone has to make the journey there and back. For working parents, this can restrict the jobs they can take, the hours they can work and the activities they can fit into their lives. It can also interfere with social and leisure activities and create yet another time pressure in already busy mornings and afternoons.

Children becoming capable of walking or cycling independently can change this.

A street environment that is safe enough for children to travel independently gives parents something extremely valuable: time and freedom.

It also gives children freedom. If we create streets where children can safely walk and cycle, they can gradually develop the skills and confidence to travel independently.

That is one reason why safe streets aren't simply a transport issue. They are a family issue.

The bigger problem: the vicious circle

Perhaps the biggest challenge is that driving to school can change our expectations about what streets should be like.

If a large proportion of families depend on cars, it can become politically harder to introduce measures that give more space to walking, cycling and public transport.

People may worry about losing parking, changing traffic arrangements or making driving less convenient.

But this creates a vicious circle:

More driving → more traffic → less safe and pleasant streets → more parents driving → even more traffic.

Breaking this cycle requires us to make the alternatives genuinely safe and convenient.

That's why Low Traffic Hackney supports measures such as School Streets, low-traffic neighbourhoods, safer cycling infrastructure and better walking routes. We shouldn't expect families to abandon the car while leaving them with streets that feel unsafe for children.

The point is not that nobody should drive children to school ever.

The point is that we should make it possible for many more families to choose something else most of the time.

The school run is changing

There is now growing recognition nationally and in London that children should be able to travel actively and independently.

In June 2026, the UK Government announced a target for 60% of children aged 5–16 in England to walk, wheel or cycle to school by 2035, alongside plans for 5,000 new walking, wheeling and cycling routes and 10,000 safer crossings by 2030. (The Guardian)

London is already ahead of that ambition in some respects. TfL reports that 63% of primary school journeys are now made on foot, exceeding its previous 60% target. The new London plan aims to increase this further. (Transport for London).

Hackney should be helping lead this change. Indeed, Hackney Greens promised this in their 2026 manifesto: 

Make school crossings a top priority, starting with the seven primary schools that currently have no safe crossings, and will create traffic-free School Streets for all eligible primary and secondary schools, as well as introducing them at colleges. (link Hackney Green Manifesto https://www.hackneygreens.org.uk/manifesto#chapter5)

We hope this promise is real, and is implemented as soon as possible.

Let's make the school journey part of childhood again

Getting to school shouldn't have to mean sitting in traffic.

For children, walking or cycling can mean exercise, independence, fresh air, friendship and time with their parents. For parents, it can mean less stress, less expense and eventually less time spent acting as a taxi service.

And for everyone else, fewer school-run cars mean cleaner air, quieter streets, less congestion and safer roads.

The answer isn't to blame parents for driving. The answer is to create streets where walking and cycling are the obvious, safe and enjoyable choices, and driving is much less convenient.

Every child should have the opportunity to get to school under their own steam.

And every parent should have the freedom to let them.

What can Hackney do?

Hackney Council can help make this possible by:

• Expanding and improving School Streets, including effective enforcement.
• Ensuring School Streets are properly enforced and cover all necessary streets around the school
• Creating safer walking and cycling routes to every school.
• Making surrounding residential streets less convenient to through-traffic.
• Supporting walking buses, bike buses and other community-led initiatives.
• Helping schools use travel data to identify where children are being driven despite living within walking or cycling distance.
• Designing streets around the needs of children rather than around the movement and storage of motor vehicles.

This isn't anti-car.

It's pro-child, pro-family and pro-safe-streets.

And if we get it right, the school run in Hackney can become something much better than a daily traffic jam: it can become a healthy, sociable and independent part of growing up.

Get involved by joining the Hackney branch of Solve The School Run .