Safety culture is nuts!
In the name of safety, danger spreads.
Back-to-School classroom instructions would have you thinking peanuts are one of the biggest dangers confronting your children. And it doesn’t let up there. Parenting magazines…Facebook posts…birthday parties…organized sports…the peanut is the ultimate boogeyman.
My kids have had their share of basketball and soccer games. Each week one of the families is responsible for bringing snacks for the entire team to enjoy after a game. And every so often, someone breaks the social norm of cookies and sugar water.
Have you ever brought a team snack that resembles a nut? Or a snack that was packaged in the same state as a peanut? Or a snack that has a peanut-colored wrapper? You won’t get anywhere near the field. A swarm of helicopter parents and minivans box you in and destroy your stash.
The peer pressure associated with peanut allergies is palpable.
All in the name of public safety. A reasonable person would guess peanut allergies kill hundreds of unsuspecting children each year.
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 13 Americans were killed by peanut allergies in a 10-year period.
Meanwhile, in the very same universe…
...over 400,000 Americans were killed in traffic crashes during a 10-year period. America’s “normal” is to lose 30,000 to 40,000 friends and family members every year in traffic.
Driving your kids to the allergist is what should worry you.
Vision Zero is a movement to eliminate traffic injuries and fatalities. (Learn more here and here.) This isn’t a wishful thinking movement. It’s based on the knowledge that road design is a huge contributor to traffic violence.
In other words, traffic deaths are preventable. Most American road design encourages high speeds and poor behavior. High speeds and poor behavior causes crashes. And crashes are a public health crisis.
Death by traffic (1996–2005) = 423,672 Americans. (NHTSA)
Death by peanut (1996–2005) = 13 Americans. (CDC)
We have a zero tolerance for peanut deaths. A peanut vision zero. But changing street design to save lives? Meh, not so much.
Our culture is programmed to think speeding in cars with minimal delay is the ideal condition. Most American roads were engineered to encourage reckless behavior — even though traffic crashes are the number one killer of children.
Right now, speed is our culture’s idol, and traffic engineering is the alter where we sacrifice our babies.
Narrower travel lanes, separated bike paths, wider sidewalks, single-lane roundabouts, scramble crosswalks…we can save thousands of lives every year in urbanized areas.
Shift the safety culture from outside the transportation industry.
We need soccer moms and dads to rearrange their safety priorities and visit city hall or the county board of supervisors. PTA meetings would be a great forum to educate other parents.
Death by peanut is preventable. Those 1–2 lost lives per year are tragic.
Death by traffic is preventable. Those 30,000–40,000 lost lives per year deserve some attention.
Remember, the most dangerous threat facing American children is the drive to anywhere, not the snacks they’re given.
I posted this to my community's traffic safety page and got this thoughtful response from a friend, who also happens to be on the frontlines in efforts in our city on traffic and cycling safety. I thought it was worth sharing with you. Here it is:
While I am in alignment with the need to improve safety on our streets, as a parent of TWO children who had multiple severe food allergies up through their teens (and one of whom still has a life-threatening allergy to fish), I am extremely disappointed by this author's inflammatory portrayal of food allergy safety measures as out-of-control propaganda. Imagine a literal poison that can drift through the air and be transferred via surfaces... that's what peanuts are for a person with severe peanut allergy. Tell me: how can a child participate in normal, daily school activities when parents like this author insist on making events "fun" by giving their non-allergic kids a poisonous substance to pass around and share? Especially when they have plenty of other foods to choose from that are perfectly safe?
The author's linked source was only to the CDC home page, not to a specific article. Lame. A few quick searches did not back up his claim. Maybe he's right, but call me doubtful. The Food Allergy Network states that >200,000 people require emergency medical care for food allergies EVERY YEAR.
Even worse, this was a missed opportunity by the author. Instead of needlessly beating up on families who are dealing with a very stressful issue, maybe he could have pointed to the success of intervention. Did he consider WHY the (supposed) death rates aren't even higher? Did he consider that perhaps the reason more children don't die every year from peanut allergies is because parents like me made the time to meet with and develop a plan with every person who is responsible for our child? Every teacher, every school nurse, every child care provider, every school bus driver, every sports team coach, every family member, every birthday party host, and on and on. It's exhausting, and it's a new group of people every school year.
The author could have said, wow, all these efforts paid off! Maybe if we work as hard on traffic safety as we do on this other safety issue, we will see improvement! But nah, he decided to just rip into vulnerable families.
...other people need to understand better how real the problem of food allergies are. Food is EVERYWHERE in our modern culture—just like cars! Especially when our children are young, it is incredibly difficult to keep them safe. It is a feeling of swimming upstream that has many parallels to dealing with traffic safety.
https://www.foodallergy.org/resources/facts-and-statistics