I’ve seen this 2015 documentary of some sort from the perspective of Japanese vs Australian kids being able to commute to and from school on their own without parental supervision. The thing is that parents in Japan encourage kids to be independent from a young age without being “babied” too much while apparently in Australia it’s common for parents to drop kids at school.
Now: why is it common for American parents to either drop kids off themselves or kids using the stereotypical yellow school buses on commuting to school rather than letting the kid use public transport themselves or walk to school on foot on their own? I’ve heard that a father got arrested in the US just for letting his son walk to and from school due to accusations of “child endangerment”.
My journey to high school would have been a multi-hour one-way walk down a road without sidewalks for most of the way with speed limits of 80+ kph depending upon where.
Middle school wasn’t much better that had slightly more sidewalks once reaching the edge of town (the highschool was, at the time, mostly surrounded by fields in another area outside of town).
I did go to one school for 3 years that was 5-6km away on ~50 kph road also with no sidewalk, poor visibility, etc. but that also would have been dangerous for someone 8-10 years old.
My kindergarten and first 3 years of primary school were about just as bad. I actually lived further away in another direction during that time.