@WC
Show me where I'd say I'd encourage this behaviour.
What I said is that I UNDERSTOOD why things had come to this.
READ WHAT I SAY
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » General Edinburgh
"school run set to be banned in 5 city streets"
(182 posts)-
Posted 8 years ago #
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i think the responses were cheering on the kids who were being confident and not bullied by cars?
I'm not going to tell my kids to randomly step out and stop traffic for the heck of it, but if they're crossing the street I teach them to do it confidently and with full knowledge of (a) the legal position and (b) the idiocy of most drivers.
Posted 8 years ago # -
*sigh*
Posted 8 years ago # -
And yes, like every other parent, I have to try to teach my children to cower on the pavement while selfish idiots drive round in ways that border on sociopathic. It just makes me sick to my stomach every time.
Posted 8 years ago # -
I'm doing a lot more militant pedestrian stuff, asserting my right of way to cross the road. It's very liberating.
Posted 8 years ago # -
Will you be telling your kids to go out into the roads and stop traffic?
I do teach my kids to do this at the moment, however the context is slightly different in that they're on bicycles and I'm teaching them vehicular cycling.
This does mean attempting to control drivers, including bringing them to a stop.
And yes, it is sheer lunacy that I'm risking my children's safety in this way, given the potential harm, even though it is likely to be the driver's fault if they're injured.
I doubt very much that many parents will do the same under the prevailing conditions of driving standards and cycling infrastructure, and I fully understand why!
Robert
Posted 8 years ago # -
Hooray for the P7s!
(P7s are usually 11 to 12 years old by the way).
They did the right thing in the situation. Worse would have been if they had just played "chicken" and tried to run across the road without stopping traffic first.
What I find shocking is that a driver complained to the police about this! Some people really need to address their sense of entitlement.
Posted 8 years ago # -
I suspect the school was contacted. if they had asked police to come in over one complaint, i'd be complaining to the HT. However, suspect it is concatenation of events - lots of parents will have seen the story that led to this http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/our-region/edinburgh/gorgie-and-dalry/police-probe-after-10-year-old-girl-approached-by-driver-1-4129735 on FB yesterday. Community officer is being asked to talk to students about both issues, apparently.
Posted 8 years ago # -
Some people really need to address their sense of entitlement.
Well, they are entitled to drive down a road , no?Posted 8 years ago # -
"Well, they are entitled to drive down a road , no?"
Just as pedestrians are entitled to walk on it. That includes children.
Posted 8 years ago # -
Hmm. So if a significant number of people exercised there right to walk down the streets rather than use the pavement, I wonder how long it would take for legislation being enacted to remove that entitlement. Anyway, get real, as WC says, this is kids arseing around. They aren't making a political statement.
Posted 8 years ago # -
a couple of kids 'arseing around' on a quiet street in front of their school and someone needs to contact the head teacher and call in a community police officer?
are you suggesting that's proportionate?
Posted 8 years ago # -
If they think they have the right to stick up their hand & stop a car so that they can stay in the road & play then I suspect someone should point out that they are acting like arrogant, entitled self important arses, might as well be a PCSO.
Posted 8 years ago # -
@stiltskin
Why so?
If 20 kids want to play in a street outside their school, why should this not take precedence over one fat bloke in a car meandering about a residential street for no clear purpose?
This may be the current way our society works, but it doesn't make it right.
Posted 8 years ago # -
As opposed to the arrogant, self important view that the car should automatically be allowed through?
Posted 8 years ago # -
quite seriously, I came home one day last year and found the neighbourhood kids playing some game on the pavement, but with some of the bigger kids darting out into the road from behind a black communal bin/between cars.
I told my kids I'd rather they played in the middle of the road and called 'car' like we used to do as kids. they understand why it's safer. they're not stupid.
Posted 8 years ago # -
You know when we complain that cyclists are stereotyped as being smug, sanctimonious and self-righteous?
It's a road. If it was decided to close it off officially, that is fine by me. I ride about 9000 miles a year and drive about 700. I think it would be great if everyone used their car in the way that I do, the world would be a nicer place etc. However, I would still support that notion that people have a right to be able to get from A to B without other people standing in their way. That is the purpose of roads: to facilitate movement.
Posted 8 years ago # -
@stiltskin
"However, I would still support that notion that people have a right to be able to get from A to B without other people standing in their way. That is the purpose of roads: to facilitate movement."
There is no such "right".
The question of the purpose of roads is moot. The road in question existed before there were motor cars, for example.
Free your thinking, stiltskin, things really do not always have to be as they are now.
Posted 8 years ago # -
"... take precedence over one fat bloke in a car meandering about a residential street for no clear purpose?"
So leaving the stereotyping and stigmatising to one side. Do people genuinely just think "I'm going to drive into that cul-de-sac and back out" with no purpose? That's bizarre behaviour and should be discouraged absolutely. Really bizarre that people will do that!
What if it's an old or disabled person who lives at the end of the street, should they still be blocked and forced to get out further away and hobble home? How do we tell the difference.
"I told my kids I'd rather they played in the middle of the road and called 'car' like we used to do as kids. they understand why it's safer. they're not stupid."
Absolutely. So not 'play in the middle of the road, then stand with hands outstretched to stop any cars that do try to pass'. There are about 17 different interpretations on the go here.
It's starting to remind me of a Porty People FB thread on the prom, with people saying that cyclists shouldn't be allowed to travel down there. I suppose they could get their kids to stand with hands outstretched stopping the self-entitled smug cyclists...
Posted 8 years ago # -
I'm not saying the person should be blocked in perpetuity but a short delay, no real objections its better than most pedestrians get were they to try to cross said road while a car was coming.
Posted 8 years ago # -
Worth remembering that the school has a duty of care to its pupils. The school was presented with a clear problem - pupils playing on a road, putting themselves in harms way. There are only two solutions here. Remove the potential harm, or remove the pupils. The school can't remove the harm, as they don't have the ability to close the road. So they exercised the only option available, try and educate the pupils to stay off the road.
You might argue that they could have done nothing. However, the story is out in the open - they had to do something, especially as there is a real possibility that a pupil could be injured.
The school could have quietly spoken to those directly involved. However, lots of other pupils will probably have seen this going on and be tempted to copy their oldest peers. Probably best to involve everyone, so there is a consistent message presented to everyone.
Think about the school staff. They had to quickly sort this out, so as to prevent any incident. Make a mistake and a pupil could be seriously injured, you are pilloried in the press and probably lose your job.
Sometimes it just isn't about cycle or pedestrian campaigning. It's really is just some kids messing about on a road.
Posted 8 years ago # -
"I'm not saying the person should be blocked in perpetuity but a short delay, no real objections its better than most pedestrians get were they to try to cross said road while a car was coming."
Again, not something I disagree with, and another variation on the original story. The kids there were mucking about by walking down the street stopping cars, for no purpose other than a laugh (I genuinely don't think they were acting with political motivation), which is different than pedestrians having priority to cross (something I fundamentally believe should be the case, along with traffic lights that trigger as soon as a pedestrian hits the button) or kids playing in the street and being given time to move out of the way as in SRD's scenario above.
Posted 8 years ago # -
'"... take precedence over one fat bloke in a car meandering about a residential street for no clear purpose?"
So leaving the stereotyping and stigmatising to one side.'
Just a prediction based on statistical likelihood.
Posted 8 years ago # -
"Just a prediction based on statistical likelihood."
And with that fallacious reasoning comes a realisation that there's no point anymore. I'm off to the helmet thread for more sensible debate.
Posted 8 years ago # -
I guess my initial reaction was a childlike delight at children apparently reclaiming the streets, rather than a more adult consideration of what was actually going on.
(I don't think there's any sense that the cars were being stopped for long?)
Posted 8 years ago # -
@WC
There is nothing in the least fallacious about predicting that if a child stops a car in an Edinburgh street, the most likely features of the driver are that he is male, fat and not doing anything of particular importance.
Which of these three predictions do you think are fallacious? I think that all three are soundly backed by government statistics.
Posted 8 years ago # -
I'm doing a lot more militant pedestrian stuff, asserting my right of way to cross the road. It's very liberating.
I get that - my colleagues think I'm crazy when I cross the road at a point which really needs a crossing, walking in front of (barely moving) vehicles. They ask "what if they don't stop"? My response is that they're going uphill, coasting on the clutch in a queue of traffic. Running me over would require actively accelerating whilst in a near-stationary queue, therefore be premeditated, and running someone over is quite a lot of paperwork!
Posted 8 years ago # -
Running me over would require actively accelerating whilst in a near-stationary queue, therefore be premeditated, and running someone over is quite a lot of paperwork!
You can think of it in game theoretic terms. There are two players, the pedestrian and the driver. The pedestrian has the choice to cross or not cross. The driver has the choice to stop or not stop. Pay outs are something like (driver, pedestrian):-
pedestrian
-----------cross ---------- not crossstop ----- (-1,+1) -------- (-1,-1)
driver
not stop - (-100,-10000) ---- (+1,-1)
Clearly, there are only two equilibriums (stop, cross) and (not stop, not cross). The other two outcomes are "dominated", as players want to change their actions given the action of the other player. Although the pedestrian has more to lose from the (not stop, cross) outcome, the driver still prefers the (stop, cross) payoff. The trick as a pedestrian is to force the preferable equilibrium, by making it absolutely clear that you are crossing whatever. The trouble with children is that they may not play the game right.
Posted 8 years ago # -
In the days before motor cars, roads were used as market- and social gathering- places. Residents could trade home made goods, chat and kids play.
Back in the day (1980s), as kids we used to play kerbie on the street (bouncing a football off the opposite kerb). Stopping whenever a car needed to pass. Totally impossible today, thanks to all the parked cars.
Go figure. (As they say in U S of A)
Posted 8 years ago # -
@Charlethepar
Most people who do X can be described as Z-ish.
- Fair enough, statistically there will be at least one way
of categorizing a majority for most Xs.I can therefore assume that any person doing X is Z-ish.
- <family fortunes klaxon>Posted 8 years ago #
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