[Closed] Why don't kids ride bikes as much anymore?

While I understand that 'road traffic' and 'car related' accidents are the leading cause of deaths by accidents, we do need to put that into context.

As many children are killed as passengers in cars, as those on bikes, and injury numbers are broadly worse for car passengers. Pedestrians are more likely to be killed or injured. [url= http://makingthelink.net/child-deaths-road-traffic-accidents ]Link[/url].
According to RoSPA figures, most serious accidents (those that have long term implications) to under 15's are in the home (stairs and kitchen mainly, usually between 5pm and 8pm). Car related accident inuries are about a 3rd of the overall serious accidents our kids face.
According to Banardo's in 2012, children are most at risk from harm in thier own home, at hands of parents or someone they know through abuse or neglect.
There is a massive link to deprevation and child accidents, and a massive variation in our childrens ability to make good risk judgements and decisions.

I will need to dig out the report, but we have some stats at work about the chances of children being injured and killed in accidents vs poor health and wellbbeing, either through chance or poor lifestyle, and you are much much much more likely to suffer from such things as cancer, diabetes and skeletal disorders caused by obesity and poor lifestyle. The figures for mental health are also shocking, and again ongoing research and growing evidence that lack of excercise, time in nature or being bored is a key factor in this.

Matt, you need to normalise those figures by passengerkm or similar to assess the risk you could try using the numbers in anitigees kids homework as a starting point, basically it's much safer to be in a car.

That said the cause of death in virtually all the pedestrian and cycling deaths will have been a big metal pollution box. All* kids should be walking/cycling to school and all towns and cities should ban cars forever but that's not happening any time soon.

*near as damn it

I didn't know they didn't. I best tell the kids around here to stop.

Three principal reasons, I think:

1) Traffic

2) Culture

3) Infrastructure

My own kids ride, but if it comes to getting to school and back, then all of them walk. Why? Primarily because the road are ridiculous during the morning rush. But also because no one else does it, so there is no understanding shown for the person who might arrive sweaty or drenched with rain. And finally, because the bike sheds are plexi-glass hell-holes where people go to vandalise and smoke.

Compare that with our friends in Germany who ride more than 8 kms each way on a paved path parallel to a major road, and have row upon row of bike parking due to the fact that everyone rides in no matter what the weather.

As a parent who encourages my boys to be outside as much as possible be it on bikes or not...

I think it's a few factors:
1) Parents work longer hours now. Both myself and the wife work effectively full time. This means more time in kids clubs etc, less time for outside play after school.
2) More organised sports clubs, less time for "just being kids".
3) Traffic, more of it and the standard of driving has dropped also.
4)

fear of what others will think about thier parenting.

As you can tell, I am not a statistician... The overall sentiment of 'Long term you are better to alow children to experience risk and learn how to deal with it.' and 'Healthy, active lifestyles are of massive benefit to all of us, but especially children' is there.

That said the cause of death in virtually all the pedestrian and cycling deaths will have been a big metal pollution box. All* kids should be walking/cycling to school and all towns and cities should ban cars forever but that's not happening any time soon.

My boys are the only ones who ride to school - small village school, around 80 pupils. We are probably the only family though who live the 'right' distance though (about 2 Km) where walking takes a significant time, and driving is daft (though I'm more or less the only person with that opinion, and I still drop them occasionally if I have to be in work on the dot). Cycling makes sense for us even without the two of us encouraging them out on bikes whenever possible.

The majority of others have a distance to travel. Often nothing that couldn't be cycled in 20-30 minutes, but that as a regular journey doesn't enter consideration .. plus rural roads really are quite dangerous for cyclists in general peak times.

There is 3 lads aged around 8 that ride around in our road however when I was their age would of been around 10 of us. Seems to be a lot less children in our road now. I live near Cheltenham Racecourse so we would be riding and exploring round there which I don't think they do.

On Saturday, they thought it would be a good idea to throw stones and ended up smashing my brothers rear windscreen! Car was parked on the drive at the time. Been repaired and their parents have paid up though.

I certainly grew up in the era of computer games. For me bikes and games basically happened at the same time and unless you're in your fifties I can't see how computer games won't have at least be around during some part of your childhood. Although we might imagine computer games and consoles weren't as prevalent back in the day I actually can't remember any one from my childhood who didn't have either a console or a computer.

In fact we used to cycle to each others houses to play computer games 😕
So I don't think video games are that much to blame.

I blame the paedos.

I blame the paedos.[i]

lol 😀

thing is video games now are much more addictive, they are also more "social" without leaving your home.

I think whole childhoods are being lost to screen gawping - we do enough of that as adults.

Traffic basically..

Every human being between the age of 17 and 90 uses a car for any journey longer than a couple of hundred yards.. When we were kids, each family had one car between them

I used to go into the city centre at 10 years old on the bus, alone to hang out with my mates.. We were out playing all day in the cul de sac from aged 5 guaranteed to only see half a dozen cars all day
Now even just in the local town crossing the road as an adult is a gamble

Cars are destroying society, moral fibre and probably the economy too

g5604

thing is video games now are much more addictive

Nah. That's 100% not true. I spent untold hours, probably thousands on games. From Harrier Attack to Double Dragon to Street Fighter II and ghouls and Ghosts to Tekken or Sega Rally.......they've always been incredibly addictive.

they are also more "social" without leaving your home.

Can't argue with that though.

How many threads pop up on this forum about cars? what t5 this,what car that,we're all part of the problem.The car is king and always will be in the U.K.

ITS BECAUSE OF THE WAY WE DRIVE AND HOW MUCH WE DRIVE

they are also more "social" without leaving your home.

Can't argue with that though.

I think this is part of the problem. When we were kids, if I wanted to see/speak to my friends, I would arrange to meet them somewhere, and ride there. Nowadays, they Skype and Facetime each other from the comfort of their lounges.

Both my kids are reasonably active, but neither of them are interested in cycling. We used to go out regularly, but they weren't enjoying it. My eldest (13), has just taken up running!

So what's the first step we could do as a society that would be acceptable (i.e. get voted for) to prevent the traffic aspect of this.

10mph speed limits?
More aggressive traffic calming measures (road features).
Higher taxation on cars/mileage?
Allow bikes on footpaths?

I played a huge amount of video games as a wee lass (started early at the age of 3, on the Speccy), but also loved going outdoors, building dens, etc.

However, I was never really allowed to ride a bike. I learnt to ride without stabilisers when I was about ten, but that was in our back garden - I wasn't allowed out on my own, and could only ride on the pavement with an escort. I think my mom was just too terrified of traffic, despite growing up in a quiet little village. So I didn't really learn to ride a bike until I was 27. Strangely, my brother was allowed to ride a bike (he once sneakily escorted me on my bike to my friend's house, my mom would have been furious if she knew). Such a shame, I grew up very close to Cannock Chase, never rode there until the past 8 years or so!

That said, I have some sympathy for my mother. I don't like Mr Toast going on road rides by himself, because so many drivers are complete and utter bellends towards cyclists (there were three incidents of road cyclists getting taken out by cars in one week recently - one died, the other two were injured - bloody awful stuff :().

My kids school must be in some sort of parallel universe, we just got 15 balance bikes for reception kids,they all get reflective arm bands. they are taught to ride and have a bike-ablility day. they have a dedicated bike path through school to the bike shed and are actively encouraged to cycle!. It's a state school in the countryside but does have fairly busy roads at school times. My kids are on their bikes a lot and we ride into the forest regularly (7 and 9 years olds), yes they do play computer games but i make sure they spend outside too!

So what's the first step we could do as a society that would be acceptable (i.e. get voted for) to prevent the traffic aspect of this.

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When I was a kid there were hardly any cars parked on the street, and moving cars were generally nowhere near the speed limit in town.

Now cars are parked nose to tail both sides of most residential streets so there barely any room and they also seem to travel much closer to the speed limit. That makes the streets where kids used to ride much more dangerous.

I can understand why they're not out there.

Looking back over this whole post and cars do get a big mention. Laddo did some cycling competition type thing at school yesterday. Usual thing though, you had to sign up get the parents slip signed etc etc. Him being a slack ****er left it till the last minute but there were limited places. He still managed to get on the course. If that had been football or a computer game session he wouldn't have stood a chance!

Ban access to easy credit for cars, as in pay in cash no more £99 a month deals and the numbers would fall off rapidly. Stop both parents working to pay for 2 cars, sky telly etc and have more mess about with your kids time. All my mates kids and family relations have there spare time organised and are ferried about all over the place. What happened to just go out and be back at five for your dinner. Still I'm not a parent so what do I know.

Saying that tho I weekend is geared round football this week. Laddo is playing tomorrow morning whilst I lay a patio for the old man so the wife will take him then it's presentation evening then another game on Sunday. He's pretty bobbins at the game but enjoys it so we encourage it, so wish it was a bike club thing but they just don't exist really around here.

While I understand that 'road traffic' and 'car related' accidents are the leading cause of deaths by accidents, we do need to put that into context.

Worth pointing out I think that for children between 5-19, land transport accidents are not the leading cause of death 'by accidents', they are the leading cause of death full stop, in the UK transport accidents kill more children and teenagers than cancer or bronchitis.

Obviously these are not all kids on bikes or playing in the street, it wouldn't surprise me much if the majority of the deaths were within cars. Either way it suggests that something is wrong with the way we use cars in our society.

As for the deaths caused by cars vs inactivity/obesity, when it comes to children it's not even a contest. Children don't really die of heart disease or diabetes, but lots of them are killed by cars. The question is whether someone who has an active lifestyle at an early age is more likely to keep it up into adulthood when those factors become much more of a risk.

Get down to Cardiff today. 290 Kids racing on closed roads.

Local bmx tracks still great places for kids to ride, our weekends revolve around racing now, lad is 8.

Traffic is bad nowadays, I have moments when I think commuting on the bike is not worth the risk now, our local roads are all double parked as well so not child friendly for riding.

Can't get my head around a lot of drivers lack of empathy for others outside their metal boxes, there seems to be something fundamentally lacking in the way driving is taught, the driving is a privilege not a right message needs to be reinforced.

So what's the first step we could do as a society that would be acceptable (i.e. get voted for) to prevent the traffic aspect of this.

Public information films making clear the existing rights of pedestrians and cyclists.

Enforcement, prosecution and decent punishment for car related offences.

Presumed liability.

Planning guidence that favours sustainable transport.

Transport budget of decent levels.

You absolutely will not get any of that whilst baby boomers are voting for the agents of the finance, oil and vehicle manufacturers who are making a lot of money from keeping people in cars.

Presumed liability

"That's right"

"But what if we changed the law so that it he gets run over there's a better chance of getting an insurance payout?"

"Well, in that case I don't mind him getting run over."

bails, are you very stupid or pretending?

Reminiscing some - but as kids, we had to have bikes. The bike took us everywhere; up the road to knock for your mates, over the park to meet the others ... in the summer up the forestry to go scrambling (probably early DH-mtbing), or venturing about to scrump apple/plum/pear trees.

Nowadays cycling is seen as almost a dangerous sport. Only kids who wore helmets when I was younger were little 10yr olds who pretended they were on motorbikes with a card rattling off their spokes, or the odd type adults who also had the shopping basket on front of bike.

Has there been a study to prove our opinions?

I had a computer for gaming but cycled/played footy all the time too.

Play a console game and hours/days/weeks go by and the kids are up all night secretly.
Why go out when you have PlayStation network or Xbox Live to okay with friends?

Facebook?

I had to teach a lot of my friends how to cycle on the road back in the 80's/90's. Maybe more training
is needed for safety and confidence.

Consoles, traffic, fear of risks that are far lower than the perceived.

But I'd say kids scooters have a lot to blame. They're a lot cheaper than a bike and a lazy option to walking. Just push with one leg and point in the rough direction they want to go. Okay bikes could be considered lazy option, but they require some effort to pedal and skills. Easy for parents to chuck in the car and seems to be a requirement for any school run, along with a monster sized car to fit it in.

Ruining skateboarding too. I go past skate parks sometimes and they're all trying (badly) to jump on scooters!

Amazes me even older kids on scooters. In my day scooters were for the under 6, and usually for girls. You were seriously uncool with one. A Grifter was the bike of choice, if you weren't rich enough to afford a bmx.

NAh, scooters are a good thing: they get kids used to the idea of 2 wheels good. Parents like them because they don't take up space, and they can be folded after taking the kids scooting to school, then brought home until collecting the monsters in the afternoon.

But generally, there's less cycling becuase of increased motorised traffic & more fun things to do indoors.

Global warming and/or El Nino?

Granted I'm far from being a kid these days, but like many of the rare Saturdays I don't work, the weather in not-so-sunny Southampton has been very uninviting for outdoor activities today! 😥