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Safety fears deter kids and teens from cycling, survey finds

"Concerns are understandable and must be addressed" says road safety charity Brake...

Concerns about the danger from traffic are often cited as the reason adults are reluctant to cycle. Road safety charity Brake says that safety concerns deter children and teenagers from cycling too — and their parents from letting them.

Brake surveyed 1,301 11-17 year olds in secondary schools and colleges across the UK, finding almost half (47%) said parental worries were preventing them from starting cycling or cycling more.

Brake also found:

  • Two in five (38%) 11-17 year olds cite a lack of safe routes as a barrier to cycling
  • Four in ten (41%) think traffic in their area is too fast for the safety of people on foot and bike
  • Nearly four in ten (37%) think their area needs more pavements, paths and cycle paths

In 2013, 186 12-15 year olds were killed or seriously injured while cycling. Brake says that parents' and children's "concerns are understandable and must be addressed".

Brake is calling on the Government to ensure that the cycling and walking investment provision of the Infrastructure Bill is implemented. The charity says that a long term commitment to investing in more segregated routes to improve the safety – and perceived safety – of walking and cycling is critical.

Julie Townsend, deputy chief executive, Brake, said: “All parents want their children to be healthy and happy, and many would love to see them walking and cycling more to achieve that.

"Young people want this too: it’s crucial to their health, wellbeing, and social and economic lives that they can get around easily and cheaply. That so many teenagers are being held back from walking and cycling by safety fears, in spite of its great benefits, is a shocking indictment of our road infrastructure.

"With the car as king in transport planning, walkers and cyclists have been for too long treated as second-class citizens. The safety of people on foot and bike is hugely important, as is enabling more people to make sustainable, active travel choices without fear of traffic danger.

"It is vital that the government builds this into long term transport planning, through the Infrastructure Bill, investment in safe walking and cycling routes, and making 20mph limits the norm in towns, cities and villages.”

Cycling Minister Robert Goodwill told the BBC his department's "record £374m investment in cycling will help keep young cyclists safe".

He said: "By March 2015, 1.6m children will have received cycle training through the Bikeability scheme.

"We have also made it easier for local authorities to introduce 20mph zones which are designed to help increase safety as cycling becomes an increasingly popular transport option in Britain."

John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.

He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.

Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.

John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.

He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.

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43 comments

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Mombee replied to OldRidgeback | 9 years ago
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OldRidgeback wrote:

But in reality, the fatality rate/year for cyclists is a fraction of what it was. It's probably about 1/6th of what it was at its peak in the early 70s.

... long-term trends are always difficult to compare because of any number of shifts in the demographics, but is there a comparison anywhere of fatalities per mile cycled? I agree that the fatalities have plummetted since 1970, but equally the level of cycling has dropped significantly as well.
There's much more detail in short-term trends and the worrying result there is that, while fatalities have dropped by 16% since 2000, serious injuries have gone up by 31%. Is there any correlation between that increase and the rise of active cyclists in recent years?

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therevokid | 9 years ago
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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"  2

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HarrogateSpa | 9 years ago
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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.

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rnick | 9 years ago
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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.

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darrenleroy replied to rnick | 9 years ago
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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.[/quote]

Unless the pupil was staying late there would be no reason for lights in winter. I rode to and from school every day of my secondary education, on roads in just my school uniform and a big dark coat. If drivers can't see someone cycling they shouldn't be driving. And let's not get started on helmets...

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ianrobo | 9 years ago
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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.

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atgni | 9 years ago
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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  21 . Apparently there is a 'data protection' issue with that idea.

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ianrobo | 9 years ago
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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 ...

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atgni | 9 years ago
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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.

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ianrobo | 9 years ago
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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 ?

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OldRidgeback replied to ianrobo | 9 years ago
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ianrobo wrote:

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 ?

No, you're not being funny at all. Cycling was a lot more dangerous in the 80s and even more so in the 70s. Using the roads was more dangerous back then, no question about it. In 1970 there were 14 road fatalities/100,000 of population in the UK. By 2012 that had fallen to 2.8/100,000. Yes, improved car safety has had a benefit with better braking, handling, ABS, seatbelts and protection. But overall the biggest safety gain has been from the way people drive, preventing drinking and driving speciifaclly. That used to carry a horrific toll.

As a parent I'm wary of letting my kids cycle on the roads because I see how many crap drivers there are. But I do let my kids cycle and they have done a Bikeability course and I am totally aware of the fact that the risk my kids undergo is a mere fraction of what I faced cycling on the roads at their age. Too many parents are too afraid of their kids being hurt, and are actually hurting them in the process.

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antonio | 9 years ago
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Did anyone ask what alternative healthy exercise they were taking up instead?

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kamoshika replied to antonio | 9 years ago
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antonio wrote:

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

That's exactly the problem - they're not. Very few people are going to say "I don't feel safe walking or cycling to school / work, so I'm going to take up swimming / football / other sport instead". That's why active healthy transport has such a crucial part to play in improving the health and fitness of the UK population - it builds the exercise in to something that you already have to do, i.e. get to where you're going.

There's no point in debating whether people are or aren't right that it's not safe to walk and cycle. The fact is that if they don't feel safe, they're not going to do it. We need to address the issues that are making them feel unsafe if we want to see a change in how people travel. That means better infrastructure, and forcing a change in the attitudes of people driving motor vehicles by properly enforcing traffic rules and properly punishing those that break them.

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