100 foot driveway waiting for the school bus. I can imagine what my mom would have said if I asked her
to drive me to the school bus.

News stand to buy him a pack of Camels, when I was 6-7. He'd wait outside for me in the car. Hahaha.

The first time he did it I had just earned my Webelos/Bobcat? pin in Cub Scouts, which you wear upside down until you do a favor for someone. So when I came out he said, "you can turn your pin right side up now."

Now I laugh so hard thinking about it because he was probably annoyed having to take me to that Scout meeting and that was his sarcasm for Scout meetings.

my 2.5-yr.-old sister and I played unsupervised in a rock-strewn lot bordered on two sides by streets, and I was supposed to be taking care of her. By age 8 I was expected to bike-ride alone several miles if I wanted to visit a friend.

What makes it al the more significant is that last I checked, crime rates now are lower than they were when I was a kid.

Parents just hear about more crime now because our immersion in the 'net exposes us to more clickable news and effectively shrunk the world (c.f. Marshall McLuhan's "global village" ).

regarding a 7 yr old (accompanied by a 10 yr old sibling) killed crossing traffic on a pre-approved two block walk home from store.

Those charges and arrest saw vigorous defense here on DU a fairly short time ago.
Not only do we not believe in such freedoms (or parenting) here - but we are more than willing to arrest you if you do.

once my mom showed me the way. We lived on a busy street and she paid an older boy a quarter a week to "cross" me in the mornings, but that was the end of his responsibility. We had a crossing guard by the school, which was (I think) two blocks away. Mom would stand outside and "cross" me after school at noon. I was also allowed to go to my friend's house after school and we often played unsupervised on the university athletic fields nearby (me and two boys). That was where I got my butt full of splinters sliding down a board, which is a whole other story.

I don't remember ever NOT walking to school. When we moved to Wisconsin I walked, first kittycorner across an open field (that was in Badger Village, about which I could write a whole volume), and then in Madison, 6 blocks to my grade school and later 3 blocks to my junior/senior high school. Kids today are soft. By the time I was 8 or so, my mom would hand me some money and ask me to go to the grocery store 3 1/2 blocks away for what she needed and give me a quarter for myself. (I squirreled away the quarters to buy batteries for the flashlight I used to read under the covers, but that's another story too.) At 10 I could take the bus to my own dental appointment, and by not much later I was allowed to take it downtown to the main library. At 11 I was riding my bike all over the west end of town. I knew my boundaries and when I was supposed to be home. My parents would probably be arrested today.