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Kids on bikes (CC licensed image by Anne and Tim:Flickr)Newcastle campaigner says parents experience abuse while cycling with children to school
Parents in Newcastle are experiencing verbal and physical abuse from some drivers while cycling their children to school, the Newcastle Cycling Campaign says.
In an impassioned article the Campaign's chair, Katja Leyendecker, reports "constantly worsening traffic" outside schools where, she says, parents face dangerous road conditions and even abuse from drivers, simply for cycling to school with their children.
Leyendecker urges the council to prioritise walking and cycling, while one parent calls her commute with her kids "scary and dangerous".
"We are majorly concerned. For quite some time now have we been contacted by numerous concerned parents who are telling us that they want to cycle to school but firstly for them to do so the roads and crossings must be made safer," Layendecker says.
"We also have heard that people who do cycle to school with their kids get abuse and insult thrown at them, verbal and even physical, by drivers. These cycling accounts are clearly heart-breaking, as the parents – whilst doing the right thing – are harangued for it. It’s shocking, really. Some have even stopped cycling as the social pressure that’s put on them is too much to bear, we have heard."
Leyendecker wants to see the council design streets outside of the school gates so an eight year old could cycle on them "without harassment or danger levied on them or discomfort to them or their parents."
She said: “It can be done by design and ‘invisible infrastructure’ like car parking reduction strategy, bus-route consolidation, general pricing mechanism and applying Dutch principles of road safety like transport network planning and road classification."
The Dutch road classification system breaks down a street to a single purpose: places where people stay, such as residential and leisure areas, and those people travel through. Under this model those purposes aren't mixed, to avoid having large differences in speed on one street.
Leyendecker points out that in Newcastle, according to the 2011 census, two of five car commutes are less than three miles.
She says: "In the Northeast we are the fattest people in England and treating obesity costs many millions to the Northeast economy."
Chair of Newcycling's Jesmond branch, Sally Watson, wrote a blog recently on the Campaign's website about cycling with her children to school.
Having filmed the journey one day, she said: "When we watched the film at home I was quite shocked at how scary it all looks. It made me realise that I have become desensitised. Not to the worst of the speeding and close overtakes, but to having to be on the offensive at all times. You can’t hear everything that I say to my son but I am shouting instructions to him almost constantly."
"It is not great cycling across Jesmond as an adult on a bike but it is so many many times worse when you are accompanying a child on their own bike. This is why very few children cycle to school. It is hard work and at times it is scary and dangerous. We live about 3/4 mile from school and it would take very little to make this journey safe."
She said: "I feel strongly that we are failing our children by not making our streets safe for travel and for play."
Some cities, including Edinburgh, are trialling banning traffic directly outside school gates at peak times in a bid to improve safety.
Laura Laker is a freelance journalist with more than a decade’s experience covering cycling, walking and wheeling (and other means of transport). Beginning her career with road.cc, Laura has also written for national and specialist titles of all stripes. One part of the popular Streets Ahead podcast, she sometimes appears as a talking head on TV and radio, and in real life at conferences and festivals. She is also the author of Potholes and Pavements: a Bumpy Ride on Britain’s National Cycle Network.
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73 comments
Too true. The majority of driving is ok, and as I presume most readers/contributors to this site also are motorists we'd like to think we're part of that 99%. But unfortunately, unlike when you're in a car and you come into contact with the 1% of idiots it doesn't hugely matter (normally, hopefully), on a bike you are vulnerable all the time. That's why we're referred to as Vulnerable Road Users, along with peds - we're not surrounded by crumple zones and airbags.
I love seeing kids cycling to school. It really raises my spirits, the little boy could do with his helmet adjusting to get the fit a bit better and he could do with some practice starting off. He seems a little unsure of how to set off (which foot to be on the ground, how to set the pedals for starting off), but he's steady enough once he gets going.
The thing I have to ask myself is where are all the 11-15 year old kids? The ones who you would expect to be riding to school on their own after a few years riding in with their parents?
My guess is that the parents, having seen what abuse and dangerous driving is around them with their own eyes, don;t want them riding to school on their own.
What do we expect these days anyway? People get all excited because they think they are the most important thing out there, no one has 5 seconds to spare, even for a child.
There should be an all-out national campaign (Greens, Friends of the Earth, whoever else) against 4x4s. Ridiculous how cyclists get vilified yet these monsters (sometimes driven with the same ego that drives them to buy an unnecessarily huge vehicle) go unpunished.
- emissions
- damage to the tarmac
- too wide for parking spaces
- chance of serious injury/death in a collision
RAMUZ! What?! Are you just saying this to get a rise or have your senses left you? In the same way that ALL cyclists get tarred with a ridiculous brush because of an idiot jumping red lights, you are saying that all 4x4 vehicles should be banned because some idiot can't drive properly. To paraphrase someone from earlier in this chat, "4x4's don't kill people, people kill people". And in case you are wondering, I commute on a bike, mountain bike, road bike, tour on a bike, drive a normal saloon and a 4x4!
Thanks for that levermonkey.
There are no dangerous roads. To paraphrase a quote from elsewhere: roads don't kill people, people kill people.
^^^^ Wot he wrote x1,000,000,000.
Yesterday I had a mild rebuke from my Boss.
On Friday whilst travelling home I passed a school at home time. An overweight woman ushered an obese child into an oversized 4x4 parked at least 3 feet from the kerb. She then set off at what I would regard as an inappropriate speed for the time of day and location.
She then aggressively sounded her horn at two school children riding correctly in the secondary position and followed this with a close pass of less than 6 inches from the handlebar ends.
This made me angry and I decided to follow her. This involved speeds up to 50mph in a 30mph zone. Before you ask I was at a discrete distance so I wasn't pressuring her to go faster. After just over a mile she swung into a driveway. I parked and got out of my vehicle and asked her (apologies for the language in advance)
"Are you fucking right?"
Blank look
"Do you realise how fucking dangerous your actions are and your fucking driving is?
Blank look
"Don't other people's children matter to you at all? Don't you feel you have a responsibility for there safety? Don't you fucking care? Don't you feel you have a duty not to endanger them you numb cunt?"
Blank look followed by a "Don't you talk like that to me, I'm going to report you!" She then turned on her heel and stormed into the house.
Now yes I admit I probably should not have sworn at her, yes I admit I'm in the wrong there. But I wish to point out that I remained on the footpath and never entered her property nor did I approach closer than 15 feet. According to her report (Yes, sign written vehicle) I marched onto her property, assaulted her, screamed at her and threatened her child. Luckily for me her neighbour came out and gave me their contact details and so all I got was a mild slap on the wrist.
In conclusion. Yes it is dangerous for children and parents to cycle to school but only because of FAT, LAZY, LYING SCUM-SUCKING HUMAN DETRITUS DRIVING TOTALY UNNECESSARY 4x4's IN A RECKLESS, HEEDLESS AND DANGEROUS MANNER!
Thank you for listening.
Sigh. Personally I think you were mild and restrained in the circumstances. And if it had been my kid that the evil moron had put in danger I would have slept happier knowing that there was another responsible citizen (you) on the roads. Thank you.
I ride with my boy once a week to school - lorry drivers are sweet now, they've had some fairly heavy training recently that has to be regularly renewed, that includes making them get on bike and driving wagons past them at speed. So they've got the message. White vans can usually be managed if you ride defensively, look the driver in the eye and give them a wave when you first see them and then when you part.
Bus drivers vary
Taxi drivers and mums late for the school run - beware. They know no order. I've bought a rear camera now, just to manage the madness and have some form of redress if it does go tits up
Car exclusion zones around schools would be a good start. Any offence involving anger/aggression leads to a mandatory three month bans - a reminder that a licence is a permission to drive and not a divine right. Increase fines hugely and enforce them.
Then we might see some change
I don't see why parking within 1000m of a school should be residents/disabled only. Start towing a few away and they'll get the message.
I actually saw some youngsters riding their bikes on the (residential) road near me at the weekend. It lifted my spirits. Kids should be playing in the road.
My commute takes me past numerous schools. Near my office there are three secondary schools close together. The driving standards of people going past are very poor. The road is narrow and bumpy and there are kids crossing the road, yet still people batter along there in excess of the 30mph speed limit. There are double yellow lines outside the schools and many parents just pull to a halt and unload their offspring. There's one woman I see regularly and I suppose it's the fact she has a Range Rover Sport and bumps up onto the pavement that makes me so annoyed.
Hardly any of the kids cycle. Given the way the drivers behave I'm not surprised.
My children's previous school before we moved had problems, for months parents complained, the police only decided to get involved when a child at the school got run over by another parent's car.
Put tyre spikes where the zigzags are that will stop people parking on them
i think they should build retractable spikes into stop lines at traffic lights. Stop the idiots jumping lights and an even worse peeve of creeping forwards whilst on red until the rear wheels are past the line.
Luckily for me, I don't have school age children any more, and my commute only passes one school, but I understand and sympathise with people about the abuse from drivers. It is completely heinous when there's a child (or more) cycling. Driving really does strip the humanity for some.
Below is an edited (to remove the location) of a reply from my councillor who at the time was the mayor & chair of the LA wellbeing committtee.
It is despairing that they have no ideas and some parents are as pigheaded and selfish as they are.
The video shows one questionably close pass (hard to tell with the fish eye lens) and a bus in a bad position. I don't get it. Not to mention the video is sped up which is a bit dishonest. If people on the Internet wouldn't sit through the video at the actual pace, is it any surprise that other road users would be put off?
You can tell it's close by looking at where the wheels of the car are - the driver could of and should of driven fully on the other side of the road, why did they choose not to?
half of the school run mums shouting abuse are likely to be drunk if the results of North Yorkshire plod's summer drink drive campaign are anything to go on; one woman 3 times over the limit, another 4.5 times, both with young children in the car. If you bear in mind that drink driving is only enforced a couple of weeks a year in a pretty cursory fashion and NYP are not exactly CSI Miami then there are a lot of people out there with very little thought for anyone, even their own kids
Yes the roads should be safe, yes people should not park in the keep clear lines and yes the traffic wardens should be there making their lives miserable for doing so. Then maybe more people would walk or cycle to school. I suspect given the location of the school in the video that most of the children who attend live within a 1 mile radius.
Having said all that, given the skills of the child in this video, I'd be walking some of those sections and junctions or using a trailer bike.
You can cycle on the pavement if you are in mortal fear of your life from riding on the roads and there is good evidence. Home Office guidance. Obviously if a road is empty you should be on it and not the pavement.
Never the less to address this article BRITAIN IS A SHIT AND DANGEROUS COUNTRY TO RIDE A BIKE.
I believe that cycling on the pavement is illegal, but that children of primary school age cannot be prosecuted.
Correct. The law on cycling on the pavement makes no difference for age, whether that is right or wrong. The technicality is that a child would not be prosecuted if they are under the age of criminal responsibility anyway. 10 in England and Wales, 12 in Scotland.
Thon child in the original pic is on a cycle track in the Meadows in Edinburgh. It's a totally car free environment. And to the best of my knowledge a peeler will not make a minor cycle on the roads.
That child should not be on the roads on a bike. What is he, 5 or 6? He can barely ride a bike. Should be on the footpath.
And where does it say it is legal to ride on the pavement?
He should definitely be on the road. And in a civilised country, that road would be made safe enough for him to do so.
He is on the "road". The path you refer to is the footway - clue there for you in the name. If by "road" you mean carriageway, then as they're on a bike that's where they should be, as its the "way" for carriages. I've looked and looked and can't find a minimum age limit anywhere for using the public highways.
Who is the child in danger from? He might well topple off and graze a knee, but the real danger is the people who decided to get in a tonne of metal that day.
Unfortunately the attitude illustrated in this article is very common in the UK. I work in this sector, and when we talk to parents who insist on driving to take their kids to school they say "Look at it, there's so many cars its too dangerous". When we explain that they are simply adding to the problem, and that other parents are looking at them saying "look how dangerous it is" they look at you blankly. The owning and driving of a car in this country has almost become taken as a human right, if you suggest taking it away it's like removing a limb for some.
And this nicely sums up the problem. No, he shouldn't be on the road. He shouldn't be on the footpath either. He should be on the cycle path. People shouldn't have to choose between legality and safety at any age, and it's entirely environmental.
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