Well, your wife driving to work is a whole other problem, but its probably best not to go into that here, you'll probably only get pissed off.

Then again, she could be a community nurse or something, and need the car, rather than just being lazy or suffering from a lack of infrastructure like the rest of us.

Be interesting to hear your arguments on this one. Is 3 people taking two buses each way (and turning a 20 minute each-way trip into a 60 minute one) preferable to the three of them driving in my wife's little fuel-efficient car?

She does cycle on occasion and would do so more often, however the amount of marking etc. she regularily has to bring home along with her laptop etc. makes cycling less desirable.

We walked nearly a mile to a bus stop then got on a normal service bus (not a specific school bus). The walk included crossing the a15 when it still went through the village. I did that from age 4 with my 7 year old sister.

My brother and a friend tried to walk the whole journey home after school when he was 4. Cue much frantic panicking about arriving at home without him by my then 9 year old sister. He hadn't managed to get very far due to following the bus route round the one way system so luckily we managed to spot him and get him onto the bus.

Four year olds walking off after school unsupervised seems to make national news these days, my mum just made my brother ring the head teacher and apologise for the worry he'd caused!

At secondary school it was very uncool to be driven to school by your parents, I wonder when that changed.

interest bit on kids on pavements..

"The DfT view, from discussions with Home Office, is that the law applies to all but the police can show discretion to younger children cycling on the pavement for whom cycling on the road would not be a safe option."

The age of criminal responsibility is 10 so, technically, only children below this age can cycle on pavements without fear of redress.

While adults are not allowed to cycle on 'footways' (see definition above), children up to the age of 16 cannot be prosecuted for doing so, see text above for clarification.

from http://www.bikeforall.net/content/cycling_and_the_law.php

bottom faq from here seems to back this up..

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/sustainable/cycling/cyclingpolicyoverview?page=6

steve – my point made then – before the "choice" of schools your children would have gone to the nearest one and thus no need to be driven

Are you sure? The private school my kids go to has been around since 1741…

She does cycle on occasion and would do so more often, however the amount of marking etc. she regularily has to bring home along with her laptop etc. makes cycling less desirable.

please do not take this as a flippant comment.. cycling some of the time is better than not cycling at all – nowt wrong with cars – just the inappropriate use of them – so bringing home a load of marking etc seems reasonable..

could always look at getting a smaller laptop and/or a decent bike trailer? you can get trailers on a c2w scheme.

Be interesting to hear your arguments on this one

Well, if you think you're going to find me rabidly arguing that everyone should cycle everywhere all the time, I think you'll be disappointed.

Agree that panniers full of books and teaching clutter are a ball ache. So its really a 'no alternative infrastructure' problem isn't it? If it was cleaner, quicker, more direct, more frequent and did't cost a gazillion pounds, it would be better than a car of any fuel efficiency wouldn't it?

Are you sure? The private school my kids go to has been around since 1741…

TJ's head may soon explode 🙂

Seems to me this could all be turned around to a different perspective – that the school threatens to report to social services all parents who allow their children to be driven to school. On the grounds the parents are deliberately risking the long term health of the child (possibly leading to earlier than usual death from heart and/or weight problems). This would remove a huge amount of traffic, local schools would be driven to improve standards by parents who could no longer ship them miles across town thereby improving everyone's education and it would be safe for the kids to walk and cycle to school as the roads would be much emptier. Win win 😉

Won't happen though, car culture, fear and lazyness means anyone tryign to put a sensible policy like that into action would get fired pronto.

epicsteve – I assumed state school – just not your local one. 🙂

epicsteve – I assumed state school – just not your local one.

Just proves the danger of assumption then doesn't it.

My local state school is Balerno (which is one of the better state schools in Edinburgh) so there wouldn't have been any point sending them anywhere else in the state sector. Not that it was the local one when my kids started school though, as we didn't live in Balerno then.

I'm torn on this one personally, just because of the ages – looking at the article, it says that they ride on the pavement, and only cross one major road, where there is a lollipop man, which doesn't seem too bad from a safety point of view, but I think possibly 5 is a bit young to be taken places by not much older siblings – I think I was at 7 before we started going to school alone (we would have been 7 and 9).

I think that is more of a thing than the cycling, which doesn't really seem to add any danger compared to them walking their on their own. I'm not really sure I'd be happy with them walking on their own, although obviously that depends a lot on the kids in question – I've known 8 year olds who I'd happily send down the corner shop (to pick up some fags and booze obviously), but some who are complete space cadets, who'd probably get lost and end up in Scunthorpe (or some other undesirable destination).

Joe

I would imagine also that if they do refer it to social services, nothing will happen. Just because something is referred to social services doesn't mean anything will happen. Just a school covering their arse. As a private school they are likely to have more of a cover your arse mentality, as they are probably more likely to get sued generally.

Joe