I-Like-To-Bike

There are no U.S. Federal laws applicable to children wearing helmets, although some states may have them. Get your facts straight!

I-Like-To-Bike

You may find yourself having liability for making false statements and causing harm to innocent people. Better not sleep so well if you are that willing to butt into other people's business and make wild accusations.

wsbob

Note: I added the bold, to the quotes below:


That's a good question. I don't think there's any one answer for all situations, but there probably are some valid points that might be raised about whether the person responsible for the child they're transporting by bike on a road amongst motor vehicles, has taken as many reasonable precautions as possible. People commenting to this thread have raised questions relating to some of those precautions, such as, 'Might the cyclist have had another, safer route option?'. Others might be, 'Did the cyclist consider the safety of the child, by reasonably maximizing the degree to which they on the bike can be visible to people on the road driving?'.




That's true, but people driving and riding in motor vehicles are not vulnerable road users relative to the degree that people on bikes and foot are vulnerable road users amongst motor vehicles. Even at considerably higher speeds than bikes travel, occupants of motor vehicles benefit from much better protection from other motor vehicles than do people on bikes from motor vehicles. People responsible for a child they're transporting by bike or trailer, have a responsibility to carefully weigh out the degree of threat to the child, posed by the road situation they're riding in, and take safety measures accordingly.

Astrozombie

No biggie, but i did see an episode of "wife swap" where they repeatedly showed a dad who rides with his kids to school/work and they took off on the sidewalk on the wrong side of the street! (In Arizona IIRC)

Essex

What's most interesting about Bike Forums is the diversity of perspectives/lenses, and adherence to what individuals deem as correct.

Let's see if the original thread-starter posts a followup.

As someone who works in public service - I am held to a higher level of responsibility when it comes to child safety.

rebel1916

You misunderstand what a "duty to report" entails.

fritz1255

The only follow-up I have is that I have driven on the same road to work every day since, and have not seen the bicyclist and his child. I HOPE he got smart and didn't try it again. When I saw them, it was the first warm day of the year. My suspicion is that the dad owns a car (it would be VERY diffcult to live in this area of PA and not own one), and he had decided to bike to daycare/work because of the nice weather. As far as alternate routes, there really aren't any good ones. Again, we live in a rural area, and most of the roads started as ox cart paths in colonial times. Nothing was planned, it just happened. This is not an instance where you can ride on 48th street if 49th is too busy. If I do see them again on Route 896, I will call the cops. Even if he is not doing anything illegal, he is doing something very stupid, and I think a cop talking to him might convince him of that.

-=(8)=-

Ferrous Bueller

"911. Please state your emergency."
"There's a man riding a bike with his kid on the edge of 896."
"Are they injured or in trouble?"
"I don't think it's safe because I commute by car."
"Oh..."

StanSeven

This is a very realistic and objective assessment. It seems people here are overly sensitive because it's a bicycle. I wonder if the reaction is the same if the man was walking with his child on the shoulder or carrying him?

dynodonn 

"Child Endangerment" just another tool by some to penalize people who have no access to a motor vehicle, and their wanting to be able to travel and conduct the same basic daily routines as their motor vehicle driving counterparts.

This is more of an autocentric road engineering, motorist entitlement issue and less about child endangerment.

mr_pedro

Child endangerment, take a look at the average kid's lunch box and you will see what real child endangerment is.

ZmanKC

I live in Overland Park, Kansas which is a suburb of Kansas City, Missouri.

CB HI

Maybe you need to get a firefighter to shoot his helmet. That will fix the problem.

CB HI

Why do so many of you think you are only in danger if you are NOT IN YOUR CAGE?

StanSeven

You misunderstood my comment. I am surprised of the reaction just because they were on a bicycle. I don't think people would be excited seeing them walking.

wsbob

Note: bottom quote excerpted.


This is a bike weblog, so naturally, people will report about incidents involving bikes. If it were a pedestrian weblog, no doubt, someone would comment expressing their alarm about a person responsible for a child, walking them in a road situation the OP describes, as people have here about a person riding a bike and transporting a child. A busy road with hardly any shoulder, carrying heavy, fast traffic, is often very dangerous for an agile adult or younger person to walk along by themselves, let alone someone with a child walking alongside, or being carried by such a person.

Different situation with perhaps some things in common with situation the OP describes: In Portland, Oregon a couple months ago, on an outer eastside, sometimes busy semi-rural neighborhood street, 35 mph posted, no sidewalks, sparse shoulders, a child supervised by a teenager was killed by a car, as the two pedestrians were preparing to cross the street mid-intersection (street doesn't have crosswalks or signaled crossings.). A car stopped to allow them to cross, but another behind the first did not stop, and proceeded to go around the first. The child didn't get what was happening...broke away from the person supervising, to run across the street by themselves, and was struck by the car that was coming around the car that had stopped.

Was the teenager considered negligent by people posting comments to the local news story? Mostly not. The two pedestrians were kind of bound by circumstance: crossing the street to get to their house. Intersections in this part of town are farther apart than the standard 200', much farther I believe...though I can't remember offhand, the distance. They didn't have a lot of options, except if maybe someone could have driven them.

Essex

I work in this sector. And in different contexts - I am held to a higher standard.


The last thing I do is make wild accusations. At the end of the day there has to be a balance, but I have personally experienced crazy-ass situations involving poor decision-making by caretakers with the end result of kids getting hurt. And like I said - I don't like seeing any kid hurt due to their imbecile parents.

rebel1916

Dude your responsibilities are not as broad as you think they are. I used to race motorcycles. On any race day there would be dozens of minor children at the track . Racing everything from minibikes to full sized bikes and ranging in age from 3-17. Perfectly legal in NY state. Often results in injury. Not of any concern to any mandatory reporter. Including my wife. The same goes for shooting ranges, boxing gyms and the all you can eat buffet.

markus_mudd

So the original poster is so upset about this parent "endangering" his child but then you didn't stop to talk to the cyclist or to offer help. You make it sound like that dad is too stupid to be left alone with a child but then you didn't do anything but complain on Bike Forums. It must not be toooooo big of a deal if it didn't motivate you to offer help.

Now for a sarcastic sentence...Calling the Police on a cyclist because the motorists are driving recklessly seems like the perfect solution.

irwin7638

My first response to this was, " I probably wouldn't do it, but I don't know the parents' circumstances." This morning I have too much time on my hands so I looked at the satellite images and street level images of the highway in question. The worst section I saw has a fully paved shoulder 4 feet wide clearly delineated by a white fog line, most sections have 4-6 feet shoulders and the street level view shows them all in excellent repair. I'd ride them with my kid any day. It's the kind of road we use to teach the Boy Scouts their cycling merit badges, and they are on their own bikes. The OP obviously knows nothing about cycling, accident probability or the the law.

Marc

jerseyJim

How does one come to this conclusion? Incomprehensible.

-=(8)=-

Lolz--Looked at a satellite image

Answers like this and the rest of the A&S philosophers of similar opinion quantify why we are our own worst enemy.
You live many states away, attitude and geographically, and use a photograph to determine your opinion on this subject? Right
When you use that stretch of road on a bike or car, for years, get back to us. You still wont get it, but I can assure you no satellite
images or A&S pedant theoretical can convey what its like to utilize that road during rush hour, by car or bike. The OP is correct,
although legal, the individual who rode the little kid down that road at that time made a judgement that had a high probability
of a bad outcome. Since A&S pedants only use what works for them in their tiny sphere of reality to judge the rest of the world, I
would not expect you to ever understand the reality of this or similar situations

CB HI

Well Mr. A&S pedant theoretical, show us the data that proves your claim.

Since you claim the probability was so high, why is there no news report of a child death?

howsteepisit

SInce I have not read endless hand wringing over cyclists being mowed down on that stretch of highway, especially here in the A&S, claiming that there is a "high probability of a bad outcome" seems exaggerated and unsubstantiated. Could you elaborate on what a high probability is? 1:1000? 1:10???? How many cyclists have come to a bad outcome along that stretch of highway in the last year? What defines a bad outcome? Death? injury? scared the pants off?

EDIT I was not trying to pile on - CB HI beat me to the post while I was typing.