The dog days of summer have come to a close, families everywhere are in the midst of finishing up their back to school shopping and the first day of the school year have just been completed.
As my youngest daughter Amanda drove off to her last year of her first day of school for her senior year at Paul Lawrence Dunbar High school, I became a bit nostalgic and sentimental feeling as I started my truck and headed off to work that morning.
But then “BAM” out of nowhere all those emotions came to a screeching halt — as I nearly ran into one of the many teenage drivers who were cutting through my neighborhood to avoid the light on Man O War Blvd.
Every August all across America communities everywhere experience a phenomenon that I will coin “Back to School Trafficitos” as a result of this annual migration.
This ecology and sometimes animalistic behavioral phenomenon occurs one week in August every year between the hours of 7-9 a.m. and 3-5 p.m, where it magically seems that your community’s population grew by 100 percent overnight and every other driver has somehow lost the ability to drive safely.
To help explain this phenomenon you have to understand that there are many variables that come in to play to create this mysterious happening. It’s a time where everybody supernaturally and without any coordination just happens to return to their communities from all their summer vacations.
Prior to this phenomenon, rush hour drivers have been surreptitiously lured into a sense of peace and tranquility that all their local traffic problems are starting to work themselves, as they dream or reminisce of their summer vacation.
With the exception of a few construction delays, everything seems perfect and then one morning in August “BAM!” — All hell breaks loose as some 6,200,000 million public school employees and another 50,000,000 students migrate back to school. Then when you pepper in the other students and employees from the 30,861 private schools in the United States, it just becomes total mayhem.
Last week just in the state of Kentucky alone, some 685,167 public school students and another 86,864 public school employees rush off to school, congesting our state roadways and elevating the collective blood pressure of all morning commuters by at least 10 points.
An additional 480,000 school buses magically reappear out of nowhere in America, where they are slotted to drive approximate 5.7 trillion miles of our highways this year, hauling some 26,000,000 students to and from some 98,817 different public schools. — Thus leaving the other 24,000,000 students to fend for their own transportation needs.
Back in the 1960s when I was in elementary school nearly 48 percent of all students in America walked or rode bikes to school uphill both ways. But today some schools go as far as to prohibit children from walking and bicycling to school for their safety.
According to Safe Routes to School (SRTS) national partnership today only 13 percent of children 5 to 14 years of age usually walked or bicycled to school, thus contributing to annual phenomena as commuters are forced to yield to these pedestrians.
As the percentage of children walking and bicycling to school continues to decrease, motor vehicle traffic continues to increase and congesting our roadways even more, as parents become more convinced that walking to school is unsafe for their children.
As a result many parents today are driving their kids to and from school more so than ever before. According to SRTS, up to 20 or 30 percent of our morning traffic can be generated by just parents driving their children to school. One report in Streetblog.org even went as far to say that today about three-quarters of school-aged kids in America get to and from school by car.
As a result this is not surprising that the “Back to School Trafficitos” phenomenon is a nasty week for traffic congestion everywhere. Many parents are working out the kinks in their new morning routines, getting used to new commutes at the start of the school year, thus causing many to be overstressed and driving badly because they haven’t budget enough time.
When you factor out the school buses, the school employees and the parental taxi drivers, this then leaves the most dangerous of all drivers — the infamous and inherently risky 16-18 year old school aged drivers, transporting themselves to and from school.
Statistics don’t lie, 16-year-olds have higher crash rates than drivers of any other age. 33% of deaths among 13 to 19-year-olds in 2010 occurred in motor vehicle crashes. 16-year-olds have higher crash rates than drivers of any other age. Also 1 in 5 of 16-year-old drivers has an accident within their first year of driving, of which many of them occur to and from school.
These unskilled drivers represent a small portion of the traffic congestion, but what is more alarming is that they are more prone to unsafe distracted driving habits, making our commutes to and from work even that much more hazardous. Young drivers are prone to distracted driving, especially with the increase of handheld technology. This is part of the reason why U.S. traffic deaths increased nearly 8 percent from 2014 to 2015, according to data recently released by the National Highway Traffic Administration.
To help survive back to school trafficitos phenomenon here are some helpful hints:
If You Don’t Have Kids, Plan Your Vacation This Week – If you can do this, you can skip the rest of the hints.
Plan & Allow For Extra Time – Decide on how much extra time you will need, then multiply it by two.
Observe Speed Limits & Obey All Traffic Laws – You may be the only one actually following this hint, but you will tripe your chances of survival.
Route Work Commutes In A Clockwise Manner: By avoiding left handed turns you will make up the difference in distance by avoiding lengthy time delays at these intersections. Your risk for a severe auto accident also declines.
Avoid School Traffic- Why punish yourself, just avoid it if possible and take the longer route.
Avoid Distracted Driving- Leave your phone in your pocket or purse, eat your breakfast and put your makeup on at home.
Always Wear Your Seat Belt- Why? It simply saves lives, that’s why.
If God forbid it rains, I would suggest for your sanity to just call in sick to work or show up to work a couple hours late once after the back to school drivers make it to school.
Be Safe My Friends
Keven Moore works in risk management services. He has a bachelor’s degree from University of Kentucky, a master’s from Eastern Kentucky University and 25-plus years of experience in the safety and insurance profession. He lives in Lexington with his family and works out of both the Lexington and Northern Kentucky offices. Keven can be reached at kmoore@roeding.com.