Is jogging on roads safe?

This was a discussion I had joined at Helium.  The points I made here were liked by readers at helium.

I had also coined a term "jog-jacker" here, I could not find a legal English term with the same meaning.

Before deciding to jog, one should be clear as to why do we want to jog. Most people jog to improve their health, to improve their stamina, to reduce weight etc. I do to start my day in the most peaceful manner I know.

So now with these statements clearly in our minds, we should try to evaluate the pros and cons of jogging on the road. Road is a hard surface specifically built for the traffic to ply. Is it really that good for us to jog? Of course there are mindless motorist for whom we are not the prime concern and they can roll us into a carpet, but not every time and not every one.

But the following can happen to every jogger on the road and every time. Anatomically we are a bag of bones connected to each other on the ends. Any impact on any extremity affects the whole body, especially the ends which support the rest of the body. Jogging on a hard surface is like slamming your hand hard on the wall. How does that feel?

Jogging on hard surfaces like roads can be very painful and stressful for your feet, knees and especially your lower back. Individuals with the slightest back pain or those who are a bit over weight, feel lot of stress. For overweight individuals the back along with, the knees and the ankles are already under pressure and jogging on concrete roads worsens the situation. The right shoes are of course doing their bit.

Besides this, another answer to why jog is to have a healthy life, a healthy life comes from the fresh air we breath. Jogging helps to increase our lung capacity and our oxygen taking capacity, this in turn affects all the other processes of our body. This happens when we inhale and exhale fresh air. So here we are, is the air

we are inhaling while jogging on the roads fresh? The pollution from the vehicles constantly plying on the roads might be under the government norms, but are they really within the physical norms of our body.

Carbon Monoxide, a dangerous byproduct of fuel combustion, binds with hemoglobin more readily than oxygen. So that means we are delivering carbon monoxide to our body and not oxygen as we think. Carbon Monoxide happens to be just one of the byproducts, most of us do not know about any other.

Stick to grassy lawns and jogging tracks for jogging. Jog where the ground is not as hard as concrete road, for your body is precious and you are jogging to improve it. Jog where there is greenery around and stay as away as possible from the vehicular pollution for you are jogging to be healthy.

By the way, do not forget the about the other perils of the road, the jay driver or a jog-jacker.