Originally Posted by
wunderkind
Kidding aside (unless it's real, then it be weird).Maybe Debbie is genuinely concern. Perhaps the route the young girl has to commute through may take her through some rough part of neighbourhood?
And what if she gets into an accident or a mishap were to happen because she let her gung-ho attitude go ahead of her wisdom/planning. Will you feel guilty about it? Folks may consider you liable even though you didn't force her to ride to work.
None of which are bike specific concerns. Any of the suggested problems could be problems in a car, too.
I think a lot of what successfully dealing with these kinds of things is to question "in what way does a car make you safer in this situation." It turns out that the only extra protection from a car is in the case of an actual collision (this is at least partly offset by collisions being less likely on a bike). Pretty much every other case, the car is only providing some false sense of security.