How's that VC working out for school kids?

dynodonn

Don't forget a lack of intersections. I use a multilane 45-50mph road to get home from work with 70 intersections in a 3 mile stretch. There's no way I'd be in a bike lane off to the side on that road. I barely use the 5-10 foot shoulder that's there now.

I did forget to mention that the high speed roads are two lane roads with very few intersections, and with the quality of driving exhibited by our local motorists, I'm not ready to venture out past the right side of the shoulder line on the higher speed roads.

joejack951

so you take a lane on that?

I tried using the shoulder in a few spots past some intersections and quickly found out how often the minor intersections on that road are used (too often for me to take the chance of riding to the right of traffic going past them). I always had moved left for sure at the major intersections with traffic lights but now there's only 3 different locations, each less than a quarter mile, where I'll move right due to a lack of intersections. It's not always pleasant as a few people do complain that I'm not in the shoulder (or the bike lane as some like to call it) but for the most part, I don't have any problems. The biggest problem I've had is people passing on the right using the right turn lanes that crop up on occasion. Not much I can do about that and I'm certainly not moving right there.

markhr

Uh, joejack in in DE and you are in the UK, how do you know what he does?

I tried using the shoulder in a few spots past some intersections and quickly found out how often the minor intersections on that road are used (too often for me to take the chance of riding to the right of traffic going past them). I always had moved left for sure at the major intersections with traffic lights but now there's only 3 different locations, each less than a quarter mile, where I'll move right due to a lack of intersections. It's not always pleasant as a few people do complain that I'm not in the shoulder (or the bike lane as some like to call it) but for the most part, I don't have any problems. The biggest problem I've had is people passing on the right using the right turn lanes that crop up on occasion. Not much I can do about that and I'm certainly not moving right there.

thanks for answering that :D

genec

I tried using the shoulder in a few spots past some intersections and quickly found out how often the minor intersections on that road are used (too often for me to take the chance of riding to the right of traffic going past them). I always had moved left for sure at the major intersections with traffic lights but now there's only 3 different locations, each less than a quarter mile, where I'll move right due to a lack of intersections. It's not always pleasant as a few people do complain that I'm not in the shoulder (or the bike lane as some like to call it) but for the most part, I don't have any problems. The biggest problem I've had is people passing on the right using the right turn lanes that crop up on occasion. Not much I can do about that and I'm certainly not moving right there.

Between you and I... I can do that too... now do you think your mother could? Or a 12 year old kid?

Just look at the message above: I did forget to mention that the high speed roads are two lane roads with very few intersections, and with the quality of driving exhibited by our local motorists, I'm not ready to venture out past the right side of the shoulder line on the higher speed roads.

Speed and motorist driving quality are the biggest issues we experienced cyclists face. (I have mentioned speed delta between cyclists and motorists since the first day I started posting on BF) As I have gotten older, my reaction time has decreased... I am not the spry young stud I once was... yet traffic speeds have increased... the result is I find the roads "less friendly" and can relate to the comments of others here.

John Forester

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19750027/

Sorry but they say that reprinting is prohibited, but here are some quotes:

Also, check the poll. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19751966/
30% would not let their kids ride to school.

So, what does Vehicular Cycling have to say about this trend? This trend that certainly has been going on for a while and will likely have effects that follow these kids well into adulthood.

I am amazed, Dian, that you should feel it necessary to ask such a question. Don't you realize that this is the predictable result of the activities and superstitions that you promulgate today? Of course, there are many causes, but you specifically asked for that cause that is relevant to Vehicular Cycling. Therefore ...

American has now had three, almost four, generations of kids raised with the cyclist-inferiority superstition from which you, yourself, suffer today, saying that they are incapable of cycling properly, and that cycling properly is dangerous. If your activities insist that this is so, contrary to the standard way of operating properly on the roadway, and those activities are kept up for seventy years or so, surely you don't expect cycling to prosper? Vehicular cyclists have been fighting this social trend for the last thirty-five years, and we get no thanks from you for doing what ought to be best for cyclists.

John Forester

hmm, i think communities that have enacted a "Safe Streets" policy have increased bicycling to schools.

safe streets initiatives includes bike specific infrastructure.

VC as an ideology is completely lousy as a way of encouraging families to let kids ride bicycles to schools.

Well, yes, people who suffer from the cyclist-inferiority superstition naturally feel that bike lanes and bike paths and sidewalks make cycling safe for children. After all, hasn't America held for generations that there is little skill to cycling, that cycling is so easy that even children can do it, and adults shouldn't have to do it in any more difficult way. The attitudes toward cycling that have been created in American popular opinion are so illogical that nobody can make any sense out of them, yet, of course, they are too tragic to deserve the horse-laughs that would be appropriate.

John Forester

umm, the groups that collectively comprise the Safe Routes to School national partnership and Bikes Belong both disagree with your hypothesis, roody.

and isn't the vc party line concerning kids bicycling about educating 8 year olds to ride better in traffic than 95 percent of bicyclists in just 3 short classes or some other nonsense?

So what, Bekologist? Any person who disagrees with Safe Routes to School and with Bikes Belong is likely to have his head screwed on right, because both of these are based on the cyclist-inferiority, cyclist-incapable superstition. That hasn't even sufficient credibility to be called an hypothesis, because an hypothesis needs to have some scientific support before qualifying for consideration.

As for the instruction of children, it doesn't take "just 3 short classes or some other nonsense." You are so driven by your desire to promote your agenda of cycling as a cure for motoring that you have lost logic and even truth.

John Forester

[QUOTE=Bekologist
VC as an ideology is completely lousy as a way of encouraging families to let kids ride bicycles to schools.[/QUOTE]

I rather doubt that. I suggest that, in the population of parents of school children, those families in which vehicular cycling is practiced probably have a higher proportion of children cycling to school than in the general population. Adjustment might be needed to include only those homes in either class for which cycling to school would be a practical proposition, eliminating those bussed long distances and such.

The real problem regarding children whose location and family situation would suit cycling to school is not vehicular-cycling thought, but the cyclist-inferiority fears of the parents. That's where the blame lies.

genec

Well, yes, people who suffer from the cyclist-inferiority superstition naturally feel that bike lanes and bike paths and sidewalks make cycling safe for children. After all, hasn't America held for generations that there is little skill to cycling, that cycling is so easy that even children can do it, and adults shouldn't have to do it in any more difficult way. The attitudes toward cycling that have been created in American popular opinion are so illogical that nobody can make any sense out of them, yet, of course, they are too tragic to deserve the horse-laughs that would be appropriate.

John if the VC attitude was so strong in the UK, why is it that the "American" attitude can even gain a toehold over there? You have already mentioned that one person was able to institute bike lanes in the UK. That must be one powerful individual, or there was already a feeling that something else needed to be done. Apparently this is not an American only issue, lest no reasonable cyclist in the UK would have permitted such foolishness to encroach upon their soil.

BTW it is not a cyclist inferiority issue, but a motorist superiority problem, where the motorists simply chose to not act according to the rules of the road, and thus do not treat bicycle drivers as a drivers of a vehicle... excluding cyclists at every possible turn. Higher and higher speed limits on roads are an indication of that very superior attitude.

The fact that silly bike lanes can displace such a strong vehicular attitude, as you have indicated exists in the UK, deserves horse-laughs too. Surly if VC was so well entrenched, there would be no way to displace it.

John Forester

This has nothing to do with VC? Your High Holiness of VC works for an organization that promotes the World's Greatest Invention and believes that organizing our transportation network around the almighty automobile is all that is needed for cycling. And the article I pointed out shows the dandy results of that kind of policy.

So how's that working out for kids? And what can VC say to all these people who don't ride bikes two fecking blocks to school?

Yes, Diane, we recognize, at least some of us do, your inability to sufficiently control your anti-motoring emotions to stay within the bounds of truth, and even of reason. It is you and your associates, over the long term, who have been promoting the fear of motor traffic and the inability of cyclists to operate with it, the cyclist-inferiority superstition, that is the principal cycling reason (there are, of course, many others) for the degradation of bicycle transportation in America. If America had not officially tilted toward cyclist-inferiority cycling thirty-five years ago, to suit motorists then with the excuse of catering to this cyclist-inferiority superstition, American bicycle transportation would be better today.

John Forester

So if sidewalks are so horribly dangerous why on earth would anybody advocate that kids ride bikes on sidewalks? That makes no sense to me.

I think that VCers just have nothing to offer toward a complete, community-wide solution to safe cycling. They worship the automobile and praise cycling that imitates it. It a foolish platform when taken in its entirety and doesn't serve children or others who are less than the serious cyclists they favor.

The best solution combines cycling in accordance with the vehicle code and on-street cycling facilities. These facilities help children understand what they are supposed to do and let motorists know that cyclists will be present. The only thing you would teach children to do differently from adults would be to do two-corner left turns or use cross walks instead of attempting to merge across lanes to reach a left turn lane.

Get sane people.

Yes, indeed, Diane, but asking you to recover your sanity assumes that you were once sane, a condition for which I have seen no evidence. The illogicalities in your statements clearly demonstrate the need, however.

You say that those who advocate vehicular cycling benefit only "serious" cyclists. That's the standard elitist propaganda argument with which we are so familiar. One would think that any reasonable person would have concluded that the charge of elitism is false, yet here you make it. And then you follow it with the statement that vehicular cycling is the proper way. Can't you connect thoughts that are only a sentence or two apart? Then you assert that bike lanes (you call them "on-street cycling facilities", but I have to assume that bike lanes are what you mean, based on the rest of what you have posted in the past) "help children understand what they are supposed to do". Bike-lane stripes help children understand proper operation in traffic? You can't be serious, except that you obviously are. Even the better-than-averagely-informed adults in this discussion group can't agree about what the bike-lane stripe means, but you, Diane, claim that even children can understand the meaning of the bike-lane stripe. And, of course, the bike-lane stripe contradicts what you expect to have taught children about operating in the vehicular manner.

I have repeatedly stated that satisfying the emotional need to pretend that the system devised by motorists to discriminate against cyclists is actually something that benefits cyclists can only result in illogical thinking. This is just another example of that.

TRaffic Jammer

hmm comparing 1969 to now.....
Less kids in the general pop. today, as our society grows older.
More cars.... alot more, as our population and densities (of pop. increases), while roads are the same, speeds are higher. (chipcoms post.) Now the kids of the 60's are today's parents, barraged by images of how nothing is safe in letting your kid out of your sight. (the fear factoring in out western society, meant to keep you locked up inside) Bikes get ripped off a heck of alot more than back in "the day", I didn't even have to lock my bike up when I rode it to school.

I still think the drivers are worse today than ever. Much less attentive and so much more prone to get off running someone over. "I didn't see him"; seems to be a legal defense now whereas 25 yrs ago, I don't think it would have flown very well. We are less responsible as a society now, more likely to litigate... IMHO it's only a matter of time before a driver successfully sues a cyclist for pain and suffering after the driver runs them over, just for being there. Although I think pointing at the VC crowd is as pointless as, well, the VC crowd. It's more a sad commentary on our society here in the West.

sbhikes

joejack951

Between you and I... I can do that too... now do you think your mother could? Or a 12 year old kid?

My mom hasn't tried but my dad has cycled on one of the same roads that I commute on both with me and by himself. He's 65.

maddyfish

I ride with my children to school. They ride on the sidewalk, as required by city regulation for under 12 years old, and I ride on the road near them.

I think it would be difficult to expect children to understand the complexities of riding on the road, maybe country roads, but not city roads.
Just like you don't let a 5 year drive the car to school, you don't let her ride her bike on the road to school.

The Human Car

I am amazed, Dian, that you should feel it necessary to ask such a question. Don't you realize that this is the predictable result of the activities and superstitions that you promulgate today? Of course, there are many causes, but you specifically asked for that cause that is relevant to Vehicular Cycling. Therefore ...

American has now had three, almost four, generations of kids raised with the cyclist-inferiority superstition from which you, yourself, suffer today, saying that they are incapable of cycling properly, and that cycling properly is dangerous. If your activities insist that this is so, contrary to the standard way of operating properly on the roadway, and those activities are kept up for seventy years or so, surely you don't expect cycling to prosper? Vehicular cyclists have been fighting this social trend for the last thirty-five years, and we get no thanks from you for doing what ought to be best for cyclists.
I am amazed, JF, that you should feel it necessary to respond to such a question in such a derogatory manner. Don't you realize that this is the predictable result of the activity of repeatedly calling people superstitions which is not based on fact but only opinion and which you still promulgating to this very day?

VC purist have repeated the same arguments for three, almost four, generations with the same lack of results, saying that people are incapable of cycling properly in the presence of bike lanes, and that cycling properly is dangerous in bike lanes. Your activities insist that this is so, contrary to the standard way experienced cyclists operate on the roadway, and if those activities are kept up for seventy years or so, surely you don't expect cycling to prosper? Vehicular cyclists have been fighting just bike lanes for the last thirty-five years, and they rightly get no thanks for doing this.

Point 1:
Doing the same thing over and over again for thirty five years and expecting different results is insanity.

Point 2:
The only social change you are effectively brining about is beginning any conversation with an insult and then patting yourself on the back for engaging in a logical argument.

CB HI

You and Roody consistently fail to take into account that the number of cars on those same roads has increased dramatically (nearly exponentially) in the last 10 years. Until you take this into account explicitly, then you cannot make a valid argument along these lines.Although Chipcom understands the post, please do not believe that is validates your premise.
The point has been discussed before. In some neighborhoods, traffic volume has gone up between homes and schools since the 1960s. Generally due to converting single family home neighborhoods to a mix that includes new multi-family buildings.

But there remain many neighborhoods that have the same traffic levels between homes and schools since the 1960s. The suburb I grew up in has the same houses (same density), same streets, same schools as when I grew up. With the same density, the residential roads have the same density of traffic. The kids do not have to travel on the highways that pass through the suburb to get to school and that is the suburb roads that have increased traffic.

chipcom

I think it would be difficult to expect children to understand the complexities of riding on the road, maybe country roads, but not city roads.
Just like you don't let a 5 year drive the car to school, you don't let her ride her bike on the road to school.

Oh horsepucky. I figured out the roads of Cleveland just fine, as did just about everyone I grew up with, as did my kids and as my grandkids are in process of. Indeed, kids figure it out better than those noob adults who never rode as kids but have driving experience.

The Human Car

But there remain many neighborhoods that have the same traffic levels between homes and schools since the 1960s. The suburb I grew up in has the same houses (same density), same streets, same schools as when I grew up. With the same density, the residential roads have the same density of traffic. The kids do not have to travel on the highways that pass through the suburb to get to school and that is the suburb roads that have increased traffic.
The problem with the same housing, same traffic and same schools is you do not have the same kids over the years, they grow up. Schools have to cater to a constantly changing location of students. There is no question that the predominate new hosing development design for new families in the United States is the lollypop development, with high speed highways being the only access, far too many of these highways (in MD at least) lack sidewalks and any sort of extra width for cyclists.

There is simply no motivation for kids to bike (because there is little to nothing to go to in the lollypop) and no opportunity to become gradually more comfortable riding in traffic.

The Human Car

Indeed, kids figure it [riding on roads] out better than those noob adults who never rode as kids but have driving experience.
Hmm... you may be on to something why there is a problem with teenage drivers.

chipcom

Hmm... you may be on to something why there is a problem with teenage drivers.

Yepper...riding a bike is easier than driving a car! :D

invisiblehand

Oh horsepucky. I figured out the roads of Cleveland just fine, as did just about everyone I grew up with, as did my kids and as my grandkids are in process of. Indeed, kids figure it out better than those noob adults who never rode as kids but have driving experience.

Chip, you don't think that the age of these kids is a factor? Arbitrarily, suppose we pick 5, 8, 11, and 14. I would think that age interacted with facilities/road design would play a big factor in how these children cycle. Moreover, I suspect that Barry is right that how much a 14 year-old cycles is dependent on how much he/she cycled as an 11 year-old.

-G

chipcom

Chip, you don't think that the age of these kids is a factor? Arbitrarily, suppose we pick 5, 8, 11, and 14. I would think that age interacted with facilities/road design would play a big factor in how these children cycle. Moreover, I suspect that Barry is right that how much a 14 year-old cycles is dependent on how much he/she cycled as an 11 year-old.

-G

I started riding to school myself, without mommy or daddy, in the first grade - 6 years old. My kids started in the second grade. Of course everyone's situation is different based on the conditions, distance, traffic patterns/volume, etc., as well as the maturity/skill level of the child - I just hate seeing people lump all kids into some general helpless category. Remember back to when you were a kid and all the stuff you could and did do even though the adults didn't give you enough credit to walk and chew gum. I hate seeing kids over protected....which IMO is one of the main reasons why fewer walk or ride to school these days.

JRA

There are plenty of parents promoting sidewalk cycling for their kids; vehicular cycling advocates are unlikely to have much affect on this.I agree.

But that won't stop the VC-ist from trying. I have to laugh. As far as I'm concerned, the VC-ist attitude toward sidewalk bicycling is a classic case of a 'shoot-yourself in the foot' position. And I'd feel the same way even if I supported the VC-ist position.

I visualize a VC ideologue telling, not just school administrators, but parents as well, that they haven't got a clue, that sidewalk riding is so incredibly dangerous that no one should ever attempt it, that their kids should ride in the street instead. Oh, yea, like that's not going to set off any crackpot alarms :D.

Nobody I know of has devised a viable education program to teach sidewalk cycling technique...That's just pathetic. My brother taught me how to ride safely on the sidewalk-- and he was just a kid. The VC bicycling education brain trust obviously isn't smarter than a 5th grader.

John Forester has written extensively about teaching cycling to kids, I find very credible his reports that kids under 13 are capable of being taught...Sheesh, I would hope so! 13 years old, for crying out loud! I rode on the road for years before I was 13.

What about a 6-year old? I rode to school alone when I was 6. But I'm sure, if there had been a Forester-inspired ideologue around, they'd have said it was all wrong and chastised my parents for allowing it because (oh, the horror of it!) I rode on the sidewalk.

The VC-ists 'solution' to getting children to ride to school is to say, "go ride in the street." I'm sorry, but it's difficult for me to take that solution seriously.

sggoodri

I want to know what the VCers have to offer to children and to their parents who fear for their safety. That's all. If cycling is perceived to be too dangerous for children, much of the time because people are leery of letting children ride in traffic, what is it they offer to rectify this situation? Seems to me all they have to offer is just less bike-friendly communities, which does nothing. It's a failure as far as creating safer traffic goes.

As a member of our P&Z board I have promoted the following engineering issues:
- Neighborhood schools closer to residences
- Closer proximity of residences and neighborhood scale shopping destinations
- Better local low-volume street connectivity to local destinations (primarily a suburb issue)
- More modest street designs (avoid more than one through lane each direction if possible)
- Adequate pavement width for safely passing bicyclists in the outside through lane
- Paved short-cut paths
- Improved design of greenways for cycling
- Bike parking in high-visibility locations
- Speed hump (20-25 mph) traffic calming on neighborhood streets

I have worked on the following education issues:
- Cycling classes (I have taught LAB Road 1 to parents)
- Improvement of DOT publications about cycling rules of the road and best practices
- Helping parents overcome school bans on cycling

I have worked on the following enforcement issues:
- Addressing police improperly stopping and ticketing cyclists for using narrow lanes
- Encouraging and applauding enforcement of red light laws and speed limits
- Teaching LAB Road 1 to law enforcement

I have worked on the following encouragement projects:
- Leading beginner rides for parents and kids
- Creating and marketing recreational routes for novice cyclists
- Bike to work week
- Riding with my 4yo to school and talking to other parents, teachers about cycling

Why do you dismiss such efforts from a vehicular cycling advocate?

sggoodri

What about a 6-year old? I rode to school alone when I was 6. But I'm sure, if there had been a Forester-inspired ideologue around, they'd have said it was all wrong and chastised my parents for allowing it because (oh, the horror of it!) I rode on the sidewalk.

The VC-ists 'solution' to getting children to ride to school is to say, "go ride in the street." I'm sorry, but it's difficult for me to take that solution seriously.

From reading the League of American Bicyclists education program for kids, and talking to professional cycling instructors who teach cycling to kids for a living, there seems to be a general belief among responsible vehicular cycling advocates that young (e.g. age 6) children are

- at enough risk when cycling on sidewalks through intersections that they are unwilling to endorse or promote it
- unreliable enough at proper roadway cycling that they are unwilling to endorse or promote it
- safe enough on those roads and sidewalks where their parents let them ride that they are unwilling to advocate against either

So, they generally stay silent on the issue of preferred location for young children, just like the government does, while promoting awareness of traffic, and primarily concentrating on the safest possible behavior when using either pedestrian or vehicular rules.

My plan for my son is to teach him to ride vehicularly, but to limit his bicycle travel to those roads where he can do so safely. I do not plan to attempt to teach them how to negotiate busy arterial roads as a very young sidewalk cyclist; I will also limit the locations of his pedestrian travel until he has the maturity to handle busy intersections properly according to pedestrian rules.

chipcom

From reading the League of American Bicyclists education program for kids, and talking to professional cycling instructors who teach cycling to kids for a living, there seems to be a general belief among responsible vehicular cycling advocates that young (e.g. age 6) children are

- at enough risk when cycling on sidewalks through intersections that they are unwilling to endorse or promote it
- unreliable enough at proper roadway cycling that they are unwilling to endorse or promote it
- safe enough on those roads and sidewalks where their parents let them ride that they are unwilling to advocate against either

So, they generally stay silent on the issue of preferred location for young children, just like the government does, while promoting awareness of traffic, and primarily concentrating on the safest possible behavior when using either pedestrian or vehicular rules.

My plan for my son is to teach him to ride vehicularly, but to limit his bicycle travel to those roads where he can do so safely. I do not plan to attempt to teach them how to negotiate busy arterial roads as a very young sidewalk cyclist; I will also limit the locations of his pedestrian travel until he has the maturity to handle busy intersections properly according to pedestrian rules.

That was the great thing about being a kid, Steve...we rode the sidewalks and the roads and anywhere else we damn well pleased...and managed to survive just fine without a LAB endorsement of our riding. Kids are extremely adaptable and innovative, if you leave them to their own devices. It's nice to have a parent to talk to for advice and tips, as long as that parent knows the difference between talking and preaching. My Dad was good like that. ;)

I think it's that 'seat-of-the-pants' experience we had as kids that made us not only better riders as adults, but also better drivers. It's much easier to understand the concepts of operating a vehicle in traffic when you have some actual experience doing it...the right way and the wrong way.

sggoodri

TRaffic Jammer

I was road riding...granted not arterials...when I was 7. Good training in the residential areas for later on when I would dance with cars. I really do believe they were a better caliber of car driver back then. Not nearly as self centered and distracted as they are now. I find drivers so much less likely to be called on their infractions(minor and major alike), or be willing to take the blame for their bad driving. I honestly think road safety really has to start with the folks driving the killing machines. This does not absolve cyclists from not riding well in any way.

EDIT>>> In line with what Chip is saying. If one doesn't take a risk and/or a chance how will you become better? WE are soooo safety minded and litigated now that nothing is left to the person responsible. Learn from mistakes and be a better performer for it. That's how skater's get better at the tricks they do, by crashing.

invisiblehand

... I just hate seeing people lump all kids into some general helpless category.

...

I hate seeing kids over protected....which IMO is one of the main reasons why fewer walk or ride to school these days.

OK. I am with you on both points.

-G

invisiblehand

I think it's that 'seat-of-the-pants' experience we had as kids that made us not only better riders as adults, but also better drivers. It's much easier to understand the concepts of operating a vehicle in traffic when you have some actual experience doing it...the right way and the wrong way.

Alright, I can agree with this too with the caveat that some instruction, limits, and guidance can prove valuable in limiting the catastrophic results while still allowing the child to learn from their own devices.

Please tell me if I am incorrect paraphrasing your argument: Figuring out the safe and effective way to cycle as a kid will make you better at figuring out the safe and effective way to cycle as a teenager or adult when the circumstances become more varied and potentially dangerous. This ability translates to other activities including driving a car.

tallard

I wasn't even allowed to walk the street to my neighbors' to take the bus with the crowd in Snowbank season until age 10 (1976), but between the ages of 10 and 12 my folks granted me more and more "street" liberty and I started cycling to school, 3 miles away, and to friends 10 miles away. Cycling with motorists was my freedom, I cherished it above all else. There's a 2 mile beach road in my home town but without exits so it was only practical if going beyond that distance.

This whole debate of fearful parents can be juxtaposed with playground infrastructure and neighborhood sport teams. In the 60s and 70s the rides in playgrounds were absolutely awesome, and yes some kids were injured, but kids would always congregate to playgrounds just because they were so much fun. Do any of you remember the reverse spinning top on which 25 kids could sit/spin/sway while hanging on with our feet and leaning out to grab the elusive stick? And the big wooden seesaws, with big handles, the ones you could get 2 kids on each end and rodeo by banging the ground, what air we'd get, weeeeee, and the tourniquettes, the flat fast spinning platforms with big bars to hang onto, and the really tall firemen ladders and poles and gymnastic rings, and the monkey bars. Well obsessed parents sued schools to a point where are these really fun rigs have been banned from playgrounds. So where do kids play now, in the streets, with the cars.

And with regards to neighborhood sports teams, parents got involved, by pushing, training, umping, driving, competition, it took the whole fun out and now fun neighborhoods group sports are all but non existent. Moms against this and moms against that. I've never been able to figure out how moms got to be such chickens and turn our society into a policed and legislated state (Canada most at fault). My mom was just as chicken as modern day mothers, except she had no community support, thank god!

The point is the more we run our society based on fear, the more fearsome it becomes. The more we isolate cyclists from motorists, the more excluded cyclists will become. Education and responsibility are key, and if the parents aren't apt to procure it, then they should not have become parents in the first place. But then that leads us to procreation obsession in our society even when people should abstain. Cycling is NOT dangerous, playgrounds are NOT dangerous, "strangers" are NOT dangerous, parental incompetence IS dangerous.

TRaffic Jammer

^^^^WORD^^^^
They tore all the playgrounds out of the school yards here a few years ago because of a couple accidents.... let's cover the world in foam rubber matting, lest someone scrapes a knee. Wonks

"Please tell me if I am incorrect paraphrasing your argument: Figuring out the safe and effective way to cycle as a kid will make you better at figuring out the safe and effective way to cycle as a teenager or adult when the circumstances become more varied and potentially dangerous. This ability translates to other activities including driving a car." +100... practice and you become better....being spoon fed makes one a useless blob of consumer.

chipcom

Alright, I can agree with this too with the caveat that some instruction, limits, and guidance can prove valuable in limiting the catastrophic results while still allowing the child to learn from their own devices.

Please tell me if I am incorrect paraphrasing your argument: Figuring out the safe and effective way to cycle as a kid will make you better at figuring out the safe and effective way to cycle as a teenager or adult when the circumstances become more varied and potentially dangerous. This ability translates to other activities including driving a car.

Yep, that about covers it.

TRaffic Jammer

JRA

That was the great thing about being a kid, Steve...we rode the sidewalks and the roads and anywhere else we damn well pleased...and managed to survive just fine without a LAB endorsement of our riding...
Oh, man! Tell me it ain't so! You managed to survive without kissing the rear end of the Lunatic from Lemon Grove?

While I have to admit that I'd never heard of that arrogant, insulting, totally screwed up SOB until relatively recently, he has a loyal band of lap-dog followers, so his crackpot ideas must be right. A small number of loyal nutcases must be right.

tallard

This why I teach my kids how to cross the street ...without the benefit of the little walking man light. I've seen too many ppl in recent years step right in front of a car simply because the little walker came on. D'uh. We've created a society too stupid to live thirty years ago, but saved their asses with big air bags and removed all other potential dangers from their lives, incl. their playgrounds where one would usually learn about cause and effect from bumps and bruises/

Speaking of "little walking man" Québec traffic accidents at intersections USED to shine in one particular sector, pedestrian/cycling fatalities were less than everywhere else in N.America due to a very simple piece of legislature. There was no such thing as "turn on red." RED IS RED GREEN IS GREEN, it was sooooo simple and worked so well. And all the Québecois population was ok with it. But then a few foreigners complained that it made driving complicated, mixing cultures or "turn on red" or "RED IS RED", since all visitors to Québec created confusion, the government recently began instituting "turn on red" policies. Yippee, Québecois will soon suffer the same intersection fatality rates as elsewhere. Gallileo would turn in his grave.

The Human Car

As a member of our P&Z board I have promoted the following engineering issues:...
Promoting is one thing but if you are halfway successful in getting all these issues recognized I seriously bow down to you.

The Human Car

...complained that it made driving complicated ...the government recently began instituting "turn on red" policies. Yippee, Québecois will soon suffer the same intersection fatality rates as elsewhere. Gallileo would turn in his grave.
Yup, life is a lot less complicated if you are allowed to kill people who get in your way.

Seriously that’s just sad.

sbhikes

The point is the more we run our society based on fear, the more fearsome it becomes. The more we isolate cyclists from motorists, the more excluded cyclists will become. Education and responsibility are key, and if the parents aren't apt to procure it, then they should not have become parents in the first place. But then that leads us to procreation obsession in our society even when people should abstain. Cycling is NOT dangerous, playgrounds are NOT dangerous, "strangers" are NOT dangerous, parental incompetence IS dangerous.

I agree with this definitely. I'm female for crying out loud and I was able to wander around my neighborhood as much as I wanted to at age 5. I walked myself to kindergarten. I played in the sewers (although I admit I was too chicken to go as far afield as my friends did.) I didn't ride my bike to school until Jr. High but only because I lived too close to school to ride a bike. I walked instead.

However, when I did play in the streets, or walk to school, or ride my bike, suburbia wasn't nearly as congested as it is now. And I had nice bike lanes to use, plus secret shortcuts through parks and hidden passages. In other words, suburbia was livable.

Unless we stop letting the automobile dominate our living spaces we won't have livable communities. VCers are part of promoting the automobile. That's what they do. They do it by advocating against any kind of supportive infrastructure any other groups might come up with for bicycles specifically. Other transportation advocates are for promoting other means of transport, and for building our communities around people, not around machines.

VCers have nothing to offer us but more and faster cars tearing through our communities.

LittleBigMan

Many schools have been cutting back on recess and physical education, observed Sarah Martin, the study’s lead author.

“Kids need to take advantage of the opportunities that do exist for physical activity,” said Martin, a Maine-based evaluation consultant and former researcher with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The article is being published in the August issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Martin did the research when she was at the CDC.
Isn't it interesting that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is headquartered in Atlanta? I thought Atlantans were backward...

Other studies have found that relatively few kids walk or bike to school. The numbers have dropped as the population has grown while the number of schools has declined and the distance to get to them has grown for many families.
I have a 12 year-old who could ride her bike to school, if she went to the one four blocks away, all 25 mph. speed limits, quiet streets. I could walk there in 5 minutes.

But she goes to a school over 20 miles away. She gonna ride a bike path there?

By the way, my dad worked for the CDC. He was instumental in isolating and identifying the pathogen responsible for causing this deadly outbreak in a Philadelphia Legionnaire's convention:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legionellosis

LittleBigMan

Unless we stop letting the automobile dominate our living spaces we won't have livable communities. VCers are part of promoting the automobile. That's what they do. They do it by advocating against any kind of supportive infrastructure any other groups might come up with for bicycles specifically. Other transportation advocates are for promoting other means of transport, and for building our communities around people, not around machines.

VCers have nothing to offer us but more and faster cars tearing through our communities.
Fact is, I'm against cars tearing through my neighborhood. That's part of VC, "sharing the road" means just that.

You imply that "VCers" (whatever that means, you ride that way, too) don't care about:

A) Promoting cycling as transportation

B) Lawless motorists

C) Reinvigorating neighborhoods

D) Teaching and encouraging children to ride their bikes to school, and other places, too

E) The national problem of obesity and physical un-fitness

These problems require attention on many fronts. But you imply that somehow, "VCers" stand in the way of solving them all because they suggest that bike lanes and bike paths will not automatically solve all these problems.

I support bike paths for those who want them. I support bike lanes that are clean and wide. I support slower speed limits, and proper enforcement.

Most of all, I support the bicycle's equal place on the road with cars.

How is this against children riding to school?

sbhikes

Daily Commute

Like others, I was riding on the street pretty young. I rode my bike to school when I was 8 on residential streets more or less following traffic laws (my dad insisted). I started riding at 5 in our driveway and in a parking lot. I worked my way up to quiet residential streets, to less quiet streets and then eventually to arterials.

If a kid isn't competent to ride on a street, the kid doesn't belong riding on that street, regardless of special facilities.

. . . I think it's that 'seat-of-the-pants' experience we had as kids that made us not only better riders as adults, but also better drivers. It's much easier to understand the concepts of operating a vehicle in traffic when you have some actual experience doing it...the right way and the wrong way.
I think you've hit on the real problem. Too many parents refuse to let their kids take the risks that make childhood fun and (eek) educational. I live near a neighborhood elementary school on a 25mph road. Parents chauffeur pretty much every kid who doesn't take the bus. Parents even escort the kids who walk.

The problem isn't that parents don't want their kids to bike to school, the problem is that parents won't let their kids out of their sight between school and home, period. Parents have been driven into a frenzy by distorted media accounts of sexual predators (reality check: your kid is more at risk from a relative than from a stranger). That makes biking to school pretty much impossible.

Edited to correct typo.

LittleBigMan

No, I am saying that promoting the automobile is the true motivation of Vehicular Cycling (TM) advocates. Not the LCI folks, not the people who just ride vehicularly (in bikes lanes as well as out), but those people who fly the JF-inspired banner of Vehicular Cycling (TM) advocate.
If JF were promoting the automobile, why did he encourage me (and others like me) to use the roads we already have to ride our bikes to work and other places?

If I had waited for "bicycle infrustructure" to ride my bike to work, I'd still be waiting, here in 2007.

But I've been riding my bike to work, ala John Forester, for over a decade. 30 miles round-trip.

"OMG, that's dangerous!"

:eek:

LittleBigMan

The problem isn't that parents don't want their kids to bike to school, the problem is that parents won't let their kids out of their sight between school and home, period. Parents have been driven into a frenzy my distorted media accounts of sexual predators (reality check: your kid is more at risk from a relative than from a stranger). That makes biking to school pretty much impossible.
Notice the original article mentioned, "safety" without being specific as to what kind of "safety."

As a parent of a 30 year-old, 25 year-old, 24 year-old and a 12 year-old, I know the various definitions of "safety." Daily Commute is exactly right about the feelings of parents toward "deviants."

And let's not forget the motoring mindset that cycling is "too dangerous" unless one is on a sidewalk or path (or 3-foot bike lane in 50 mph. traffic.)

Let's face it, to make cycling doable for kids, the speed limits have to be reduced and enforced, and designs have to accomodate cyclists of all ages, bike lanes or no.

(I've seen bike lanes that were obviously put there to ferry children from one neighborhood street to the next along a major artery. The "customer" doesn't use them, parents are probably telling kids, "no way you'll get out on a street with fast cars," and I don't use them much, they are too short, anyway.)

BTW, I don't blame parents for telling their kids to avoid 50 mph. arteries (bike lanes or no,) it's the speed, clearance, and skill that matters, not the stripe (or lack of it.)

We need sane speeds and a recognition that bikes belong. Motorists can just quit crying about missing the next red light.

Paint a line if you want, but if you don't slow speeds or increase clearance, forget the idea.

The Human Car

ABC News
Worry in America
Are we worrying about the right things?
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=2896180

The Human Car

If I had waited for "bicycle infrustructure" to ride my bike to work, I'd still be waiting, here in 2007.
Similarly if the average American waited for a JF clone to teach them to use the current car only infrastructure they would also still be waiting.

CB HI

Similarly if the average American waited for a JF clone to teach them to use the current car only infrastructure they would also still be waiting.

Some may have a hard time reading and understanding any one, of several good cycling books that explain VC, but not the average American.

So the the bike lane advocates should just write a book and get it into the local libraries.

Sorry, I forgot, you still have to get special road space set aside, get the bike lanes painted and then you have to have the cyclist read the book to teach them not ride in the bike lanes half the time (like in door zones). So I guess the bike lane book alone, will not work.