Road safety is a bigger concern for parents than "stranger danger", suggests the survey for the sustainable transport group, Sustrans.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Cycling News
Near-miss accidents common on school run say parents
(25 posts)-
Posted 11 years ago #
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It's hardly surprising when you see how they have them walking to school.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Aye, shut them all up in cars and kep the doors locked until you're right at the school gate. Then there'll be no traffic incidents.....oh wait.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Sustrans says the most recent government figures on road deaths and injuries show that in 2012, across England, Wales and Scotland, 33 children under the age of 16 died in accidents while walking or cycling and more than 1,800 were seriously injured.
"If a whole classroom of children had been killed under other circumstances there would be public outcry," said Sustrans chief executive Malcolm Shepherd.
Posted 11 years ago # -
You have to follow the link to the report get the joke.
Posted 11 years ago # -
I was replying in the same spirit. I understood the joke, but the point of that stunt is the kids should be free to wander in the road outside their school, rather than coralled behind railings like livestock at market.
Posted 11 years ago # -
I need to employ more smilies and winkies. The railings are amazing, stretching the whole length of the school.
I passed quite a sweet sight this morning of a mother and son doing the whole 'cycle to school' thing. I assume there's some initiative going on because it looked like the mother had never actually cycled before. So there she was braking hard on the most shallow of inclines making her kid late for school as she gamely, determinedly accompanied him to school on their bikes. He was miles ahead, trying to make it look like he didn't know her, probably.
Posted 11 years ago # -
"It's hardly surprising when you see how they have them walking to school. "
That deserves a LOL. No place to run, no place to hide.
The car park in my kids' primary school is supposed to be closed after 8.30am, and school starts at 8.50. Yesterday I counted 5 cars going in after 8.45 - three drop-offs, and two lone drivers who are presumably staff.
Angry email to Parent Council coming up.
Posted 11 years ago # -
"email to Parent Council "
Good!
But go to their meetings / join'em too.
Posted 11 years ago # -
I regularly see parents drive to the west end of Roseburn Park and then get bikes out of the car for the kids to cycle through the park to Roseburn Primary.
Cognitive dissonance?
Posted 11 years ago # -
I do go to all their meetings. But if you don't line these things up in advance, nothing ever gets done.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Good point.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Angry email to Parent Council coming up.
What SRD said, but also I suggest you e-mail the Head Teacher.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Cognitive dissonance?
Just the normal attitude to cycling in these islands: cycling is for kids in parks, and for everything else you have to drive.
Posted 11 years ago # -
But surely it's better to drive the kids part way, park well away from the school and cycle the bit that's manageable than join the jam at the gates even if it's just a token effort. Not everyone has the skills (and the time) to manage cycling with their kids through traffic the whole way from home. If we're contemptuous of people's honest efforts to do a bit more cycling, however limited it may be or unskilled they may look, then why would we expect them to persevere?
Posted 11 years ago # -
Headteacher is a... well, I'm not sure what the etiquette is around here for minor sweary words. Let's say she's no friend of honest people, and [self edit to remove something incriminating about her that I probably shouldn't post yet].
So I'll go with the Parent Council.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Sallyhinch - didn't mean to appear dismissive or contemptuous and I accept your point. Just pointing out the slight irony of being concerned about cycle safety for their kids but also driving mahoosive 4x4s.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Better than the parents at ours who drive up to the gate to unload the bike from the boot....
If only it did lead them to consider doing more as Sallyhinch suggests. For most people, I don't think it goes much further.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Part of the problem in most of Edinburgh is that the roads themselves are dangerous to cycle on because of the state of the surface.
If you create a scenario of ignoring bad driving and making the roads difficult to cycle on (regardless of traffic) things are just going to keep on getting worse as more people will start driving.
Posted 11 years ago # -
[oldman]
I don't understand this obsession with driving kids to school.
When I went to primary school, it was 1/2 mile away and had gradients of up to 12%.
Secondary school was 1.3m until we moved, then it was 1.7m. (That's walking, each way.)
That was nothing unusual back in the 70s/80s.
Now kids get dropped off at the gate... but, of course, the rising rates of childhood obesity have nothing to do with this...
[/oldman]
Posted 11 years ago # -
@Stickman - I suppose you need the 4x4 to fit the kids' bikes in the back...
My sister did the part drive + walk/cycle for a while and has now graduated to cycling (once a week) or bus/walk. Some schools do encourage 'park and stride'.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Hmm, intersting to think back to what we did as kids.
Primary 1-6, shcool was a 10 minute walk. We moved in priamry 7 but I stayed at the same school, so I had a 2+ mile journey. I was supposed to take the train, but I would often walk home and use the train money to buy a fritter. Yeah, that's how I started getting simultaneously fat and fit.
Secondary school was a 15 minute walk.
And not once in 13 years did I get dropped or picked up by car.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Primary school in London we used to walk in a group to school together - it wasn't far but you had to cross one quite busy road (except on the days when I had to be dragged to school). We also played out in the afternoons entirely unsupervised within certain limits. Of course what my parents didn't know until several years later was that we were living in the same street as Dennis Neilsen. He wasn't interested in little girls (although he did try and chat up the older brother of a friend) but I think our parents would have thought twice after that. We were probably at greater risk from the traffic ...
Posted 11 years ago # -
@Insto "I passed quite a sweet sight this morning of a mother and son doing the whole 'cycle to school' thing. "
The last few weeks have been (certainly in Dalgety Bay and Aberdour) Bikeability weeks. Josie has been teaching it for the last 2 weeks. Perhaps this was the parent trying to accompany their chld to school.
Posted 11 years ago #
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