Safety fears deter kids and teens from cycling, survey finds

the "attitude" of drivers has changed too ... there are far more
aggressive road users now than there were in the 70's or 80's.
i never had problems time trialling back then. now it's rare for a
club run not to have at least one "punishment pass"

I agree with the article, not many of the comments. It has to be and feel very safe if you're going to send children to school on bikes, and it isn't in most cases.

Some people may be lazy, but get safety sorted first, make it pleasant and easy to cycle, and they might change their minds.

And Mr Goodwill, it's not about cycle training. There's nothing wrong with cycle training, but that's a peripheral issue. The root of the problem is feeling and being threatened by vehicles/the people driving them.

As a parent of 2 primary school kids, I'm not surprised by the survey. My eldest, 10 years old rides with a club & is out with me most weekends. Sadly, 1 out of 5 rides seems to involve an encounter described as "Dad - that was scary / they were really close / I didn't think they'd stop" etc.

We live in a rural area and no, I would not allow him to ride to school (3 miles away) so we use the bus.

A seismic shift in the attitude of car drivers (I drive 20k miles a year..) is required, a change in law to a presumption of fault when in a collision with a car / pedestrian is essential. Ordinarily there should be no excuse for driving into someone. So pleads such as bright sun, wet road, bit dark, did not see them etc should be worthless, it's not a big effort to press the brake pedal and exercise a little caution.

Cyclists are not guilt free - schools need to educate pupils better, I'm sickened by the site of school pupils in winter, no lights, no helmet, no hi-viz....and for the commuters jumping red lights, really stupid / ignorant.

yeah think there is ... something has to be done, I know one person in our close takes their kids every day to school by car, we live bloody 500M away and we walk our daughter with the dog apart from one day when work means a car drop off but at the earlier time for a pre school club.

A 500m radius from the school gate would cover around 80% of the catchment's houses.
I suggested getting the year 6's to photograph the cars and post them on the weekly newsletter or the school website in a hall of shame page . Apparently there is a 'data protection' issue with that idea.

ah the cars outside of schools, personally I would put a 500M no parking zone around schools, but some has to patrol it. Most of it is idleness ...

The issue starts at Primary School by us.

Our estate is flat and has 3m wide cycle paths nearly everywhere. The school is full so virtually everyone there is in catchment within the estate. Yet so many people drop off little Jimmy and Joanna as near as they possibly can to the school gate, ignoring zig-zags and parking on the pavement, blocking the Zebra crossing etc.
The parents create the danger they are trying to protect their children from!
Virtually none of the journeys can be over 1km.

And yes I do understand some people drop off on the way to work but it's just bonkers the way enough of them drive inconsiderately for it to be a constant issue rather than an isolated incident.

Then the Secondary Schools have a compulsory helmet rule and that's that; any that did cycle or scoot to Primary, walk to Secondary.

Well done all round.

not being funny but is cycling less safer now than when I used to do it at 7-15 - the 80's ?

Ok more traffic around but now you have so much more visibility. Dare I say some of this is the implication of what antonio is hinting at ? Just an excuse as most sports are seeing less exercise from that age range ?

Did anyone ask what alternative healthy exercise they were taking up instead?