Hazards of Safety: Transportation Externalities and the Rights of Children

Motor vehicle transport has had an important role in defining the form and use of the modern urban landscape, but its impacts on children and their use of space are particularly profound. Children lack legal and practical authority over motorized transportation systems and yet are subject to the direct harms it produces – such as the risk of getting injured or killed in a collision.The modern response to these risks has been a sheltering of children from harm rather than a substantive alteration of the landscape, which may have long-term impacts on child health and development. Furthermore, the risk and perception of risk present several important challenges. Children from low-income families spend more time in these environments, which in the absence of substantial improvements in pedestrian safety puts them at greater risk of harm than other children. The risks of harm are geographically segmented, with heavy traffic not only spatially concentrated but where the source of the traffic is often displaced from the “sink.”