Encouraging our Children to Cycle?

[Don March]

Hey all i am recycling a blog post.
The Original can be found at http://bikewalktn.blogspot.com/2011/08/arrested-for-riding-bike-to-school.html.

Now to start admittedly I have a vested interest in the outcome since this is my daughter second the lack of support for cycling in this country is deplorable.


Her mother has been doing a load of leg work on this so awesome job mom!
The facts as i understand them are this my daughter who has grown up in a cycle friendly family has been riding her bicycle to school most of last year (weather and lighting dependent she is only 10 after all) Last Thursday she was brought home by a police officer who advised mom that she was riding in an unsafe endowment (all of a sudden?) and must desist and an implied threat of arrest was apparently made verbally by said officer. a call to his supervisor a major Veran (once again specific detail are in the original blog post) got much the same reaction, a knee jerk reaction to provide the streets for just car drivers. every time someone else calls the chief of police about this issue the core concern seems to change. The main area of concern seems to be over on (definitely) dangerous corner. most of this route was part of my daily commute to work for a 3 yrs. the corner in question had already been addressed because i was concerned for ANYONE"S safety who cycled it. there is a yard that I obtained permission for her to cut across to avoid the hazard altogether. The reality being that even though we do have a shared right to the road, a car still outweighs a cyclist on a bike by a vast majority and while we face hazards everyday we also do what we can to mitigate them . I wonder why we have gone backwards as a society? when i was 10 I rode all over town unsupervised. On one hand we want our kids to get out of the house and exercise but on the other we want to say its unsafe? Honestly I believe we are moving more and more to a welfare state where the government and police have massive powers not to just enforce the law but to circumvent it at will. The in question is the oldest of 4 and we noticed a pattern of acting out to assert her individuality by age 8. This was the solution we tried to allow her to assert that in a constructive manner. if u find this informative please tell someone forward it to you congressional Representatives, the power united voice can achieve amazing things
Thank you for your attention
Don
Email: [email protected]

 

[Beersk]

Only in Tennessee...

They aren't moving backwards down there, they just haven't grown opposable thumbs yet. Fight this to the death. There's no excuse for such ignorant behavior by authority figures.
We should encourage children to ride bikes and be as active as possible in an ever more sedentary country.

 

[katherine25]

I think that's absolutely ridiculous! Children should be out on their bikes and getting exercise. I find children these days are becoming more lazy and over weight and there's no excuse for it! I have noticed however, children who ride their bikes all over the road and have no regard for the traffic approaching. They think because they are on a bike that they can do whatever they want. These kind of acts is where the police should be spending their time, not on the children who are obeying the rules and riding their bikes for fun. That's just shameful.

 

[BikeBikeBikeBike]

This is absurd. I rode my bike to school everyday for a decade. I am fine in fact I am better for it.
Is some kind of crime being committed? Why are the police getting involved with a child going to school? Isn't this just a routine part of childhood?
As long as she has been taught the rules of the road and has the proper safety equipment the she should be fine.
So the police expect her to walk to school now?

 

[Catsyo]

This sadly reminds me of my first interaction with a police officer. I was like 9 or 10 years old and was riding down the street from my house. A stray cat ran in front of me so I swerved out of the way and crashed my bike. All in all, it wasn't a big deal. Kids fall off their bikes all the time. My only injury was a scraped knee.

The cop driving behind me had a different opinion. He immediately beeped his siren, turned his lights on like he pulled me over and proceeded to berate me for causing an accident. He then made me get in the back in the car and took me back to my house where he told my parents I was swerving all over the road (I wasn't) and shouldn't be allowed to ride in the street to begin with. I ended up getting in trouble just because the dude wanted to go on a power trip.

If anything, the opposite of this should be happening. We should be encouraging kids to ride so they get in the habit early on when they're less set in their ways. We could teach a generation how to respect the road early so they could be better cyclists and auto drivers, but we don't.

 

[gavinfree]

This doesn't make any sense to me. Aren't we suffering from an obesity epidemic in this country anyways? We need to get MORE kids on bicycles and encourage them to exercise regularly. If we teach them the rules of the road, too, then maybe future generations will grow up to respect cyclists more than they currently do in some areas.

 

[Catsyo]

It is really shortsighted, but shortsightedness often wins the day. It's depressing how many people won't acknowledge that the road belongs to the public as a whole and not just them. You even see it in people getting mad at other drivers.

It just doesn't make sense because when I was a kid, we were encouraged the cycle because it taught us the rules of the road which prepared us for driving. I even went to a bike traffic school when I was in first or second grade that taught us the rules with that logic. I do think I'm a better driver because I had those concepts engrained at an early age.

 

[arghyadeep]

Yes, I do encourage my children to cycle. Cycling is very important for growth of a child in his or her early age.

It is an effective way of exercise for children where they would find lots of fun. I love going out with my children on Sundays to make them learn about cycling.

 

[9lines]

We should inform them about the benefits of cycling including how it improves blood circulation. We should make sure that their bikes are in good condition. We must teach them on how to take care of their bikes. We must also be encouraging.