Overprotective parents

Ah, the irony:

Parents who forbid their children to cross roads alone may be preventing them from learning vital lessons in how to avoid being run over, according to an analysis of official figures.

The proportion of children who are never allowed to cross a road unsupervised has risen each year for the past five years. But the number of child pedestrians being killed is also rising.

Department for Transport research found that, last year, almost half (49 per cent) of parents with children aged 7-10 said that they never allowed them to cross the road on their own, compared with 41 per cent in 2002.