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White Hutchinson Leisure & Learning Group, Kansas City, MO, USA

Drop-Off and Pick-Up Should Be Safe

In the July 2005 issue of Parenting magazine, it was estimated that every four hours a child in the U.S. is hit by a driver backing up in a driveway or parking lot.

How you design your child care drop-off and parking area can do a lot to alleviate safety concerns. Try to provide both short-term and long-term parking for parents. To avoid bottlenecks, plan the traffic flow carefully. It's important to coordinate parking lot exits with traffic flow that's controlled by other entities. Wide parking stalls for parents to easily navigate with strollers and car seats will best facilitate safe entry and exit of the parking stalls. Also give consideration to how the traffic flows across the parking lot into the building so that parents are not crossing traffic lanes.

Service delivery areas must be physically separated from children's outdoor play spaces, pedestrian parking and ideally from visitor parking. They are best located close to the kitchen, however, you will need to provide some concrete ballast in this area to protect pedestrian traffic and the building from a runaway vehicle. I remember visiting a child care center several years ago in North Carolina that had a car drive off the road down into the play yard. Luckily, there were no children playing in the yard at the time of the crash. Having concrete bollards placed to protect the yard from traffic could have prevented this dangerous situation. Although no one, including myself, likes the look of concrete, having them painted to match the building can soften such elements. Many now have plastic sleeves that can be purchased for a cover. One child care center here in Kansas City turned them into large crayons, proving that safety is never boring.

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