by Paul Peters

Created on: December 28, 2008

Well as with anything in life, sure you have a little bit of risk. As with anything there is risk. I'm not saying that running on a road is defiantly safe and that you won't get hurt, but you could get hurt laughing too hard over a movie. If you never took that little bit of risk then you would never be doing anything. You would be sitting in a lab sitting still. You'd be sitting in a lab because you don't want to start choking on a grain of dust now do you. Well that's besides the point.

Now by saying that running on roads is a safe idea I'm not saying to go to your nearest high-way and start running on it. Now that's just a stupid idea. If you do that you're asking to be hit. Really with anything there are a few precautions that you need to take.

Now if you live in a rural area this is a lot easier to run on the road seeing as how there aren't as many people on the roads. This is a definite benefit. Another benefit with running in the country is that there is a lot of scenery to see. I personally know some people that run just about every day around a new area. It really is a benefit to your health and it doesn't appear like they've got hit by any cars. I don't know what you call a risk but not getting hit once in 1000 times doesn't seem like that much of a risk to me. Now that looks like a big fat 0% chance to me. To be honest there are people that have been running every day for the last 20 years and the majority of the haven't been hit.

Now if you live in an urban area, you have to do a bit more planning to get a good run in. While running in the city you have to make sure that you don't have to go past any roads that are main roads. Honestly I would recommend going on any roads that have a speed limit of more then 35m.p.h. This normally means that the road is more heavily traveled. Honestly most of the decision making is a personal decision. If you thinks it's a risk don't do it but if you think that it's safe then most of the time it is.

Now I'm not saying it's really "safe" but it is as close of safe as you can get. Thereis very minimal risk and a lot of benefits to your personal health. In my opinion the benefits are defiantly outwayed by the small possibility of injury that running on roads have. Honestly you probably have more risk in a shopping mall because you ever know a terrorist could come in and spray mustard gas in the air and have it slowly deteriorate your insides.

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