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Childhood cycling in steep decline
Published by Matt Polaine | Filed under Cycling
credit: bikeradar.com
At the start of Britain’s Bike to School Week (May 6 – 9) Cycling England has highlighted what it calls a ‘lost generation’ of cyclists as worried parents prevent their offspring from riding on the nation’s roads. The government-backed agency claims this parental fear about the dangers of traffic has given rise to what have been labelled ‘cul-de-sac kids’ – youngsters who never ride their bikes much further than the end of the road.
According to research conducted on behalf of the agency, the most common age at which present-day parents were able to cycle on the roads was 10 – but for their offspring that age has risen to 12. The research found that while one in three parents (35%) were allowed to cycle to school, only one in five (18%) allow their children to do so today - with just 4% of children actually cycling to school regularly.
Parents are no longer giving their children the run of local roads. Over three quarters of parents (81%) ban their children from cycling independently, or limit their children’s cycling to their immediate road or neighbourhood streets.
Zach Behrens at LAist dug out this poster from the City of Munster in Germany, which shows the space occupied by the same number of people if they use their cars, ride the bus, or their bicycles.
The biggest reason offered by parents for not letting their child cycle was the issue of safety (36%) and this fear has resulted in a situation where, according to the survey, over a quarter of children (29%) are only allowed to cycle with adult supervision.Â
Phillip Darnton, Chairman of Cycling England, said:Â Â
“Concern about safety is understandable, but we need to remember that on-road accidents are in long term decline. Every parent will want to ensure their children are kept safe, but they can’t live out their lives within the shadows of the cul-de-sac, never able to venture further away from home. This is particularly important, as we know that cycling to school, to friends, or just as a fun activity in its own right, can play a hugely positive role in the development of a child’s independence. I urge schools to come forward and offer Bikeability training as part of the push to get children cycling.â€Â
But is such training really the key to allaying the fear of parents or does the problem lie in the lack of proper cycling infrastructure coupled with the volume and speed of traffic in modern day Britain? Should Cycle England focus more on promoting traffic-calming measures, cycle paths, signage and driver education?
Read comments on this article at BikeRadar.
4 Responses to “Childhood cycling in steep decline”
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May 13th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
Actually, Phillip Darnton is incorrect. The RTIs per Km travelled are in decline for all except motorcyclist and cyclists. The latter because so few are left on the UK highway that the number of cycle RTIs may have gone down, but per Km travelled they are rising again.
Worse, the UK has one of the worst child RTI rates in Europe, with road deaths being the number one killer for children and young adults.
The blame rests entirely with infrastructure and legislation. £billions are spent on enabling more and more motor traffic to clog up each new road built, yet less than 0.1% of the transport budget is spent on cycle infrastructure. Added to this, the average fine for killing or severely injuring a cyclist through careless or dangerous driving is less than the average fine for causing serious harm or death of a dog.
The in turn sends a very clear message out to all cyclists: DfT doesn’t consider cyclists to be real transport, and the courts don’t think cycle injuries matter.
September 8th, 2008 at 10:11 am
The papers here (the Netherlands) reported a couple of days ago that child injury rates on the roads are down again. There’s an article in Dutch on the fietsberaad website.
Of course, decreasing the number of injuries is actually one of the aims of design here. That’s the sort of difference that decent, and ever improving, infrastructure makes.
September 8th, 2008 at 10:30 am
It would be good to get a translation of that report.
Here in the UK, the Team GB wins in both Olympic and Para-Olympic cycling squads that is bringing home nearly half of all the UK Gold medals is not lost on the public (though it is on mainstream media where football still dominates at absurd percentages), and some of the public are asking how such wins have been possible with such crap road design, legislation, police support, and court support for UK cyclists?
Maybe the answer is because UK culture is so crap for cyclists that those who stick with it are very tough and committed.
Cycling could do so much for the UK in terms of reducing energy consumption, congestion, pollution, carbon emissions, obesity, and improved independence for school children, but the money that government is spending each year on cycling roughly equals a few kilometres of motorway building.
The DfT just hasn’t a clue of the damage it is doing by caving into motoring lobbies and the car-is-king culture.
September 18th, 2008 at 9:04 pm
It’s not parents who are stopping their kids necessarily. Whenever we try to get our kid out on his push bike he is not at all keen.
When I was 8 I loved being out on my own on my bike - freedom, speed, being away from the folks.
Our kid is not at all keen, in the slightest. He would rather take his scooter out when he does play out. Or just walk.
I think it’s freaky, myself.