The 10 years old is a guideline that is bandied around but it is not law and I would be strongly against it ever being made law. Each situation needs to be judged accordingly, different roads and situations are all different as are children, and there are many many places where walking at less than 10 years old would be perfectly safe. Any type of abduction risk I personally am not concerned about because the likelihood of it happening is so small and the benefits to a child of the independence of walking to school on their own or with friends outweighs the risk in my opinion, and I believe that everyone should be allowed to make their own assessment so I don't like the idea of schools prescribing an age myself. The more people that drive their children to school the more at risk the children who walk to school are, especially around the school drop off areas - so it becomes a vicious cycle, so I think schools should be tougher on illegal parking, and traffic dodging - given the many benefits of walking to school.

My DD thinks by 6 she will be walking her brother to childcare and walking to school by herself! I think that is a bit young myself especially to have the responsibility of DS, but I expect by 7-8 she would be ok on her own, given the route she would need to take (she has already been walking it for two years with me). The distance perception thing doesn't particularly bother me as we were just taught as kids you don't cross if you can see a car - doesn't matter how far away it is, and that principal would work fine around here, but not in all places.