The first of our stories to mark ‘World Car Free Day 2020’ (22 September) comes from Sally Hall, who used the opportunity of working from home to make the school run greener and more active

Working from home has really enabled me to make an effort to be more active on the school run. With a five-year-old and a three-year-old, the 15-20 minute (one-way) walk to our school always seemed really daunting before lockdown. Even if I could get them there in time, on the days when I was working I worried I’d be too late to fit my hours in at work if we walked to school. Also, most days I needed to dash off to the office or for meetings straight away, so it was hard to avoid using the car. But now I’m working from home, which helps. And after lots of practice in lockdown both kids are super speedy on their scooters, so the journey is much quicker. An adult kick-scooter seemed like a good way to make active travel work even better for us – On my scooter I can get back from the school run in around 7 minutes, so I am able to log on by just after 9am. It’s also really good fun!

In reality I did cycle to work/school quite often, but taking that out of the equation – if I’d driven every day to work, I would’ve driven around 50.6 miles per week at least. On top of that I would’ve driven another 2 miles for the school run (assuming I drove every time).

So working from home is saving me from driving 50+ miles per week.

Now I’m working from home and scooting the school run is saving me from driving around 10 miles per week (assuming I would otherwise drive to school every day).

Working from home has really enabled me to make an effort to be more active on the school run. With a five-year-old and a three-year-old, the 15-20 minute (one-way) walk to our school always seemed really daunting before lockdown. Even if I could get them there in time, on the days when I was working I worried I’d be too late to fit my hours in at work if we walked to school. Also, most days I needed to dash off to the office or for meetings straight away, so it was hard to avoid using the car. But now I’m working from home, which helps. And after lots of practice in lockdown both kids are super speedy on their scooters, so the journey is much quicker. An adult scooter seemed like a good way to make active travel work even better for us – On my scooter I can get back from the school run in around 7 minutes, so I am able to log on by just after 9am. It’s also really good fun!

In reality I did cycle to work/school quite often, but taking that out of the equation – if I’d driven every day to work, I would’ve driven around 50.6 miles per week at least. On top of that I would’ve driven another 2 miles for the school run (assuming I drove every time).

So working from home is saving me from driving 50+ miles per week.

Now I’m working from home and scooting the school run is saving me from driving around 10 miles per week (assuming I would otherwise drive to school every day).