If you don't have any school-aged children, you should be thinking carefully about this week - especially if you're planning to drive anywhere.
Parents with kids who are returning to school today - or going off to class for the first time - have been thinking about the start of the new school year for a while.
They've been amassing a fortune in school clothes and supplies, and figuring out how their youngsters will get to school and back home again...safely.
Lots of parents will opt to drive their children to school, and that will mean a huge increase in local traffic around schools every weekday morning, and again in the afternoons.
Lots of kids will be walking to school, creating a mass of pedestrian traffic excited about the return to school, reconnecting with friends and filled with all sorts of thoughts and ideas to distract them from the business of safely negotiating the route to school.
Traffic congestion has a way of building frustration and inciting rash behaviour in drivers who suddenly realize they are going to be late for work or appointments. In an environment of traffic congested by parents trying to relearn the routine of getting their youngsters to the school's front door, frustrated commuters finding their usual route to work clogged, and masses of kids bubbling with excitement, one bad decision can wreak havoc on many lives.
If you're driving anywhere this week, remember that, in any altercation between your vehicle and a child, the child will lose - but so will you, regardless of who's at fault.
Think about leaving for work early. And drive at a speed that allows you time to think.
