Children who commute to school unaccompanied have greater autonomy and perceptions of safety.

Aim: We explored the rates of children who actively commuted to school, both accompanied and unaccompanied, and identified their safety perceptions.

Methods: This cross-sectional study focused on 745 children, aged 6-12 years, from public schools in the Spanish Granada region. They completed a questionnaire, providing personal data, their school grade, safety perceptions, whether they were accompanied to school and how they travelled to school. We analysed how active commuters were accompanied to school by age group and assessed the associations between safety perceptions and whether or not they were accompanied.

Results: Children aged 10-12 years were more likely to travel to school unaccompanied, more likely to travel actively and had better safety perceptions than younger children. We also found differences in how active commuters between 10 and 12 years and children aged 6-7 and 8-9 years (all p < 0.001) were accompanied to school. Children aged 10-12 years who actively commuted unaccompanied had a better understanding of safety issues than accompanied children (p < 0.010).

Conclusion: Older children who actively commuted to school unaccompanied had better safety perceptions than other children in this sample of children aged 6-12.