Is This The Action Of A Responsible Parent?
You’re doing WHAT? Taking your kids on a tow-along trailer thing on the public highway? Where there are CARS for Chrissake? Are you either totally mental, or just don’t give a damn about your kids’ health?
OK - enough of that. And I’m exaggerating a whole lot anyway.
The issue of whether or not it’s "safe" to ride on the road with a child behind you on a tow-along was raised today on the BabyRambles blog . In essence, Emily - the author - had seen someone riding along the road through her village with a tow-along behind them for their child on it:
The road through our village is busy, narrow, hilly and winding in places. People are meant to drive at 30mph but many don’t. Would you cycle with your three year old on a road like that?
Let me say that I think all children should be encouraged to cycle, it’s a healthy and environmentally friendly thing to do. But I think they should only do it in certain places, it only takes a split second for something to go wrong.
And what followed was an explanation of why she wouldn’t be letting her children ride on the road.
There are three opposing views to this problem:
- Cyclists shouldn’t be on the road, as they don’t pay road tax - no pay; no play! Oddly enough the kind of people who seem keenest on this sort of approach also seem the keenest on pointing out the menace of cyclists on the pavement. While it’s tempting to take these two together and conclude that they’re just anti-bike, let’s apply Occam’s Razor to the contradictions implied, and assume stupidity & ignorance rather than malice.
- Expecting bikes and cars to share the road is asking for trouble, as accidents will happen, and when they do it’s the bike that comes off worse, leaving the poor innocent driver to deal with the guilt. This kind of thinking generally implies no cycling until we have Dutch-style segregation everywhere to allow for everyday cycling as transport. Until we get that, it’s just too damned dangerous for anyone to ride a bike. Oh, it also assumes fault on the part of the person riding the bike, causing an "accident" whereby the driver "accidentally" kills / maims the cyclist. An accident would be something that couldn’t be reasonably foreseen and prevented by a competent person - doesn’t sound like most of the cyclist or pedestrian fatalities you read about, does it?
- Expecting bike lanes & routes to go everywhere is asking the impossible. Besides, we already have bike routes that go everywhere - they’re called "roads" . In other words, learn the rules of the road, be assertive, and exercise your right to be on the road over those poor fools whose presence we suffer under license.
I think that (1) is definitely wrong, but where the balance lies between (2) and (3) is a harder question to answer - especially when the consequence of a driver’s error is so severe. There’s nothing particularly dangerous about being on the roads, it’s just that when you’re riding a bike and mixing with large, armoured, fast-moving vehicles, the situation is very unforgiving of mistakes.
My thinking is that it’s worth the risk. In riding regularly, you buy yourself an extra two year’s life (even after the risk of being rubbed out by a driver is taken into account), and health levels that would be expected in someone ten years your junior. In other words, longer life but without the long slide into decrepitude.
So if the roads where you live are too "dangerous" to ride on, maybe it’s because you’ve let the car-centric hegemony creep up on you. Perhaps it’s time for you to take control and change your environment for the better:
So the problem still comes down to the cars & their drivers - many of whom ignore the speed limits or treat them as minimum speeds.
The question is, what are YOU prepared to do about that? Can you get the road’s speed limit reduced to 20mph? How about speed cameras? Or will the police set up a mobile camera? What about traffic calming? Or if you can’t get the local council to install this, you can make your own - you’d be amazed at how easy it is to make chicanes from cars parked on alternate sides of the street! Yes, there’s a risk that some moron will clobber your legally parked car, but compared with the cost of your child’s extra two years life, isn’t that a price worth paying? If you’re artistic, look at Road Witching (google it), plant trees alongside the road, obscure sight-lines, tighten junction radii. Take control.
Rather than saying riding a bike is dangerous, it’s time to address the source of the danger - too many people driving too fast, too impatiently, and too aggressively. I t is time to reclaim the streets from the car-centric culture we’ve allowed to take over.
He’s got the dehydration problem sussed.
I remember cycling down Nottm’s ring road with my young son in tow. He loved whizzing past the cars.
I think a child on a tagalong bike, or a child bracketed between two adults is perfectly safe on any cyclable road, or at least as safe as they are walking along the pavement and/or crossing the road under supervision. But once the child is a bit more free - riding on her own and with only one adult, say, then it starts to become a balanced risk, and that’s a hard judgement to make. I don’t have kids of my own so I don’t want to be saying what parents should or shouldn’t do. Those of us who grew up in the 70s & 80s and remember the freedom of tooling round on bikes on the roads weren’t contending with drivers strapped into enormous safe 4×4s cushioned by air bags, so our gilded memories may be a little off. And I know that once you get behind a wheel, seeing a kid on a bike mixing with traffic, however competently, is terrifying (my God, I might hit that child!) and fear can very quickly turn into anger.
From the point of view of society, the more children out on the streets, forcing drivers to slow down and be more attentive, the better. But obviously, it would be better if it was someone else’s children acting as the traffic calming measure …
The reason I’m nervous about my young children cycling on a hazardous road is because I was hit by a car myself. On viewpoint number 2: I’m not sure anyone would have sympathy for a driver who hits a cyclist as a result of bad driving. Car drivers cause accidents and so do cyclists, pedestrians and horse riders. Everyone needs to have respect for each other on the road, it doesn’t often happen. I’d love my children to cycle anywhere but at the moment I feel I need to make a judgment on where’s safe and where’s not.
And meant to add: yes we all have a duty to campaign for a safer environment. I’m certainly not a mother who’ll moan about it, do nothing and stop my children riding their bikes.
How remarkable that if you use a ton of metal, your right to speed is greater than the rights of children.
I like Road Witching, by the way. I must think more about that…
Have you seen the “Community Pace Car” scheme, Karl?
Essentially people sign up & agree to drive considerately & according to traffic law in their jurisdiction - definitely active in New Zealand, and I think Doncaster had it for a while (the ABD weren’t happy about it, as it would “force” drivers to tailgate and become frustrated).
I find that people who usually make the argument against kids on bike rides, aren’t willing to consider the risk that being in a car entails. Car accidents are a leading cause of death in just about every country, so it’s not exactly like that’s a totally safe activity. It’s just a level of risk that society has better learned to accept.