They WERE safe for decades. From grades 4 - 6 we walked to school and back every day. From our house it was 1.1 miles each way. Not one kid was ever threatened or molested. The incidence of child molestation runs in a 1:1 relationship to Liberal policies.
Our town was smaller -- just 7/10 mile across. We walked, too. Today the buses pick each child up at each house. People here are petrified of child abuse -- and I'm not sure there's even been any.
But parents think there is.