New Delhi: Every day millions of adolescents cross major roads and highways without any adult supervision on their way to schools. Walking is the most common way these children travel to and from school and for most of them, the walk happens on roads that were never designed with them in mind.A study of 4,789 school-going adolescents in Delhi, conducted across four public schools has found 65% students cross the road alone. The study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Injury Prevention and supported by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) was led by Pratishtha Singh, Jagnoor Jagnoor, and Daniel Gyaase from The George Institute for Global Health India. It was co-authored by Abhaya Jha, Ishnita Nayantara Keskar, and Ruchi Varma from the HumanQind Design Foundation. The four schools were specifically selected on the basis of their proximity to high-crash road segments, commonly known as ‘black spots’. Many students underlined fear of crash, speeding vehicle, robbery, and harassment. The study examined the understanding of road safety signs, safety practices, and the risks adolescents between 10 and 19 years perceive during their daily commutes.Alone on footWalking emerged as the dominant mode of travel among the students surveyed but the proportions varied by gender. Among males, 78% walked to school and 80% walked back home. Among females, 38% walked to school and 49% walked home. Cycling and public buses were the next most common modes, followed by e-rickshaws and motorcycles.High-risk roadsThe prevalence of unsupervised road use is striking. Of the total, 65% of the students crossed roads alone. But broken down by gender, 73% of males crossed roads alone compared to 59% females. The gap widens among those who cycled, 82% of males cycled alone on the main road, compared with 39% of females. Most male (70%) and female (65%) students felt safe commuting to and from school. Furthermore, students who commuted as pillion riders on motorcycles never wore a helmet (39% of male students and 46% of female students). Even students traveling by car displayed low use of seatbelts.Interestingly, a large percentage of students indicated they felt safe but when asked specifically, safety concerns differed by gender: road crashes were reported by 36% of males and 37% of females, while speeding concerned 35% of males and 28% of females. The nature of fear also differed by gender in ways that reflect broader patterns of vulnerability. Concerns about strangers were also comparable (26% males; 21% females). Male students were more fearful of robbery while females students, on the other hand, were more likely to report fears of harassment and eve-teasing, with 15.57% of females expressing this concern compared to 8.95% of males. Pratishtha Singh, lead author of the study, said in the press release, “The school commute is an everyday part of adolescent life, but for many young people it also means navigating busy roads and making decisions about safety on their own. Our findings show that rather than focusing only on individual behaviour, we need to create environments that make safe travel possible. Safer school journeys will require infrastructure, enforcement, and education that responds to the realities young people face every day.”Knowledge gapAccording to the report, knowledge varied across signs, while most students were able to identify the stop/go and pedestrian crossing signs, others and a relatively higher number of students incorrectly identified the school zone and speed limit signs. Using Bloom’s classification, the study found that 59.66% of students fell in the “poor” knowledge category, 21.72% in the “moderate” category, and only 18.63% in the “good” category. Older adolescents, those between 15-19 years of age were able to perform better, suggesting that knowledge increased with grade, class, and age. The students who fall under the ‘good’ category were also among students from families that owned vehicles, and among those who reported encountering traffic signs during their commute. But researchers also underlined that a large knowledge gap persisted even among older students, indicating that age and experience alone is not sufficient to build road safety awareness.Infra gapThe researchers note that India’s infrastructural development has largely prioritised motorised transport, even though walking and cycling remain the primary mode of commute for students. The researchers are explicit that while road safety education and behaviour-change programmes remain important, they are unlikely to achieve meaningful reductions in injury risk if the physical environment around schools remains unsafe. The responsibility for road safety, the study makes clear, cannot be placed on children alone and must be grounded in a ‘safe system’ approach, an internationally recognised best-practice framework. Jagnoor Jagnoor, senior author of the study from The George Institute for Global Health India, said, “We cannot put the responsibility for road safety on adolescents alone. If children are walking and cycling to school, the roads and streets around them must be designed to protect them.”The study addresses the problem at multiple levels simultaneously. With regard to infrastructure, they called for safer walking and cycling routes near schools, traffic calming measures around school zones, protected crossings, better lighting and dedicated pedestrian pathways. On weak awareness, they recommend moving away from classroom-only instruction toward more engaging, interactive formats including simulations, peer education, and scenario-based exercises that have demonstrated greater effectiveness in building knowledge retention. These should also be integrated into school programmes. Moreover, the study also calls for stricter compliance mechanisms with regard to protected devices i.e; helmets and seatbelts. Lastly, at an institutional level, the researchers call for stronger coordination through District Road Safety Committees and school-level Road Safety Clubs. It also urges that adolescents’ needs be given greater consideration in urban and transport planning which is a step that would require treating children not as an afterthought, but as a central constituency of the city. Ramsha Sartaj is an editorial intern at The Wire.