School runs are at the very heart of Dublin's car-dependency culture, accounting for at least 20 per cent of morning peak-time traffic, with more than half of the region's schoolchildren being chauffeured by parents.
Yet, despite the congestion this creates, both in the city and its suburbs, it seems to be accepted as inevitable as night follows day that the traffic gets worse when the kids return to school. The fact that most of their teachers also drive to work merely aggravates the problem.
Dublin's transport planners have identified the school run as a major contributory factor in the growth of traffic. That's why they recently suggested the idea of "walking buses", whereby groups of 20 children in each area would be walked to school by two adults.
"The concept is meant to be fun," said Mr Michael Ahern, of the Dublin Transportation Office. "Often the children put on little jackets and when they are `getting on the bus' they are given a sticker which they can exchange for sweets at school." They also enjoy being with friends.
The idea has not been introduced in Dublin, at least not yet, but it is an increasingly common practice abroad and seems to work well. Schools in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany also encourage parents to allow their children to cycle to school by organising a collective "pick-up".
As soon as the "walking bus" idea was mooted here, it was rejected as "impractical" by the National Parents Council (Primary). It lacked an understanding of the practicalities and logistics of two adults accompanying a large group of children aged four to 12, the council said.
There was also a question of public liability insurance, according to its chairman, Mr Desmond Kelly. Other solutions to the traffic problem, he suggested, would include flexitime opening hours for schools or the use of Imp-style minibuses to provide a school bus service.
The DTO's director, Mr John Henry, was disappointed by the negative reaction of the parents council. "We always seem to be looking for reasons why things won't work. As a result, implementing innovative ideas has become something of an uphill struggle," he said.
However, the DTO and Dublin Corporation are undeterred. In mid-September, they will be introducing the "walking bus" concept on a pilot basis at Belgrove boys' and girls' schools in Clontarf, which have 1,000 pupils. If successful, it will be extended to other schools.
Initiatives to deal with the school run phenomenon are part of the DTO's short-term action plan, which provides for the creation of safer walking and cycling routes to schools. Many parents though still have safety concerns, fearing their children could be run down or attacked.
Some of them cause gratuitous additional congestion on Sandford Road in Ranelagh, turning right or left into the side road that leads to Gonzaga College; their precious children cannot even be permitted to make their own way on foot for the last few hundred yards to the school gates.
Of course, Dublin's school run problem is exacerbated by the decisions made by parents to shun their local community school or college in favour of sending them to a school which might be several miles from where they live.
But the most insidious aspect of the school run is the car-dependency culture it creates. Chauffeured children come to believe that there is no other way of getting around; some of the posher schools have had to provide parking spaces for sixth-formers with their own cars.
A study by Britain's Child Health Institute, "The school run - blessing or blight?", found that it inhibited children taking exercise. "We are in danger of creating generations of obese people with fragile bones if the habit of physical exercise is not instilled in young people," it warned.
In the US, where car dependency is "extreme", one out of every five children suffers from obesity because of the lack of physical exercise and 33 per cent of the total population is obese, compared with 10 per cent in Europe, according to the European Commission's cycling handbook.
It cites a recent survey which found that 50 per cent of schoolchildren said their preferred transport would be by bicycle. "Since the distance between home and school is generally less than 3 km - about 10 minutes by bicycle - this healthy desire should be satisfied more often."
EVEN in the middle of Finland, where the climate in winter is very severe, I saw hundreds of bicycles parked outside a rural secondary school, with the snow thick on the ground, yet in Ireland, even soft rain is used as an excuse to take children to school by car.
One secondary school on the outskirts of Ipswich in Suffolk has achieved a cycling rate of 61 per cent among its 1,000 pupils, using a network of cycle tracks which links it with its catchment area. Cycling also gives teenagers a degree of independence, the European Commission said.
In general, however, the trend in car use for school journeys in Britain is sharply upwards, nearly doubling over the last 10 years, according to the final report of its Urban Task Force; Germany, by contrast, has experienced only a small fraction of that increase in school runs.
The task force, chaired by architect Mr Richard Rogers, said there was a need to check this trend. "We particularly want to see initiatives that involve the school itself - governors, teachers, parents and children - planning together how to provide more sustainable travel options."
In that context, "walking buses" seem like a very good idea indeed. It would also help, of course, if the general speed limit was reduced from 30 m.p.h. to 30 k.p.h. in urban areas.
That safer limit was introduced last year in Graz, Austria, on the very day the kids went back to school.