To the editor: 

The letter from the Pancoasts (Barrington Times: April 30, 2025) resorts to two tactics that undermine their suggestions.  

First is the appeal to raw emotion: the “what if it happened to you?” technique. This automatically squelches any chance of approaching an issue logically, because one is automatically being judged as unsympathetic.  

The second is the “lies, damned lies and statistics” approach whereby an incomplete evaluation of isolated statistics is utilized  to buttress one’s argument. For those who cannot see past the first there can be no argument that will convince. So we will rely on reasonableness to examine the latter. 

The Pancoasts cite that over a nine year period 52 school age children died being struck by non-school related vehicles within the bounds of a school zone. They assume this is primarily due to speed. But the inherent chaotic nature of school discharge and pickup affords multiple alternative explanations: children darting into the street, bicyclists going every which way, inattention and distraction on the part of everyone, sightline blockage by buses, cars and the short stature of younger children. Given all these variables it is actually quite remarkable so few injuries occur. 

Another consideration is how much indemnification of risk is warranted given the actual tolls incurred. Do we create all sorts of hurdles impeding thousands and thousands to marginally reduce an, admittedly, grave outcome, which actually involves very few in the grand scheme?  This may seem a callous approach , but practicality dictates it, otherwise none of us would ever leave the confines of our homes. Relative risk must be considered. 

For instance there are roughly 60 million school age children in the U.S. Using the Pancoast’s numbers (52 deaths in nine years) that means that there are about 60 deaths in a decade or six per year. That means each child has a one in ten million chance of meeting a transportation-induced catastrophe going to school.  Nationwide, children’s dog bite deaths are 10-15 per year and roller skating is ten with tricycles being about three and baseball is four. All of these pursuits involve fewer than the 60 million who trundle off to school given the narrower ages groups involved. So the percentages of these deaths  outstrip considerably that of traffic accidents in school zones. 

Despite these greater risks we are not chaining up all dogs, banning tricycles or converting Little Leaguers to playing marbles. Basically the costs to the general public in time, labor and inconvenience of traffic cameras is not a fair trade for the minimal good it might accomplish, especially when considering the very few

Involved. These are, most assuredly, hard realities and may seem heartless but, regardless of the possible personal horror,  the cost-benefit is just not there. A simpler more cost effective solution is preferred. 

Stephen E Glinick

Barrington