Health Update: Alive, but less mobile

THE number of child pedestrians killed by cars has fallen significantly over the past two decades - but only at the cost of restricting children's mobility, argues a report in the British Medical Journal. In England and Wales between 1968 and 1987 pedestrian mortality among children four years old and younger fell by 67 per cent, and among children aged five to 14 by 39 per cent.

The author, from the University of Auckland, argues that children are being denied their 'right to mobility'. In 1971, 80 per cent of seven- and eight-year-olds were allowed to travel to school unaccompanied - in 1990 the figure was 9 per cent.