To have an issue with these being used in rush hour traffic...

[BuzzBuzzBuzzLightyear]

I work in a very busy city centre. I'm fortunate enough to have a parking space underneath my office so I drive to work most days. DH and I car share.

In the last two weeks (with the good weather I guess) i have seen two different people cycling through busy city centre traffic with babies/toddlers in these things attached to the back of their bike.

Now, is it just me, or is that fucking bonkers extremely dangerous?! They are the flimsiest looking things, like a tent on wheels, right at exhaust level as well. DH agrees with me, he says they give him the heebie jeebies, but we are given to being slightly overprotective parents.

I can see the attraction in a country park or whatever but ffs!

Yanbu. I think you are transferring your worries / paranoia unnecessarily. I used to take ds to nursery / childminder on the back of my bike and some people suggested it was unsafe. Well if cycling is unsafe then I wouldn't be doing it myself would I? Yes there are some accidents but it's safer than driving and a lot quicker than walking. I'll use the canal etc where feasible but have as much right to be on the roads as everyone else.

And many of Artisan's points involve a car anyway.

Should I buy a car? Or should I and my family be able to make journeys is safety using a healthier (overall, despite the pollution), less polluting, spatially more efficient (cars are a very big way of transporting approximately one person) mode of transport which takes less space to park and is good for my mental wellbeing?

Maybe the problem here isn't with the cyclists but with the infrastructure that forces us to mix with the cars and heavier vehicles?

Plus ça change, plus la même chose! I remember our parish priest tutting and shaking his head thirty years ago as he watched the choir mistress's husband barrel down the main street/ highway with the kids in a home-made version of this. I was electrified with wonder; the priest felt the same way as the OP.

If you are concerned about the safety of kids on bikes, then campaign for safer cycling infrastructure and drivers being more respectful of cyclists.

The thing in the OP is not a kid on a bike.

I hate them too being ridden on the roads. Little children look so vulnerable in the traffic, breathing in all the fumes.