To remind everyone to hold their children's hands

[littlemisscomper]

TIGHTLY around roads.

www.facebook.com/chris.leigh.adi/videos/2221828591393207/UzpfSTEwMDAwMDU2NTA0NjA2ODoyNDQ1MjkyNTQ1NDk5NTU2/

Even if you think they're mature enough to walk along without, they can really take you by surprise. Once I was walking through town with the little ones I nanny for. They were around 4 and 6 at the time. The little girl dropped some crappy leaflet she'd picked up at the library, pulled her hand out of mine and dove after it - straight in front of a car!! Thank goodness it stopped in time. When I exclaimed that she could have been run over her older brother defended her with 'But if she hadn't the LEAFLET would have been run over!'

I hate seeing young children walking independently, or using scooters or bikes along pavements. They just don't have the road sense. It's not worth the risk.

Little children should be on reins, ideally, or handheld. I've seen two near misses and 1 accident. The latter was when my sister. We were taught road safety diligently, using the car watching game (mum wasn't keen to rely just on green men after nearly being clipped herself). One day my sister saw her friend and just bolted. She was hit but luckily bounced, just bruises. My parents and the driver were in pieces.

The other two near misses were near nursery, one when a lady dropped her son's hand to grab his buggy. For two years he hadn't ever moved from that spot but that day he bolted. He was so so quick. If i hadn't grabbed him at the gate he would have been badly hurt. The last was when the dad dropped his little girls hand to grab the stuff that fell from his broken bag, the lg saw her mum and bolted. Her mum luckily, as she bolted in response across the road to grab her daughter, narrowly avoided being squashed and grabbed her toddler before she reached the road.

My 5 year old is pretty good walking, but I still have to watch like a hawk JUST in case. The two younger ones need absolutely vigilance - middle one (4) is totally scatter brained and will follow a butterfly into a road etc, or a cloud she's seen, or just because she's too preoccupied. I'm a constant loudspeaker bellowing out road orders when we're walking, so stressful but you can't let your guard down for a second. Probably why I'm already going grey/have stresshive scars :(

Former driving instructor here. Here are two phrases I used to use regularly on lessons:

Children + wheels = huge danger. (Scooters, bikes etc; once upon a time it would also have been roller skates, or pogo sticks according to the Ladybird books of the 70s and 80's!)

Children + ball = huge danger. If they drop or kick the ball into the road, they're likely to go and get it. Even now, I drive extremely carefully past children who are kicking a ball as they walk along.

I also used to say "that walking iPod might keep walking across that side road". "Does she have headphones on under that hood?" "With black clothes being so fashionable, it's hard to see pedestrians in the dark; all you can see are the reflective bits on their trainers." "Runners don't like to stop for any reason on Earth."

Also dogs are unpredictable, even on leads. I recently alarmed my parents by driving practically on to the other side of the road to give a dog on the pavement a wide berth, as you might overtake a cyclist: said dog was on a long lead, on a narrow pavement. I had checked there was no oncoming traffic!

There's another thing not often mentioned: because children are smaller than adults, to the driver it looks (at first glance) as if they're further away.

Having said all that, I remember being allowed to run ahead aged 6 (not on main roads), being allowed to go to places on my own aged ten, so that I could manage walking to secondary school, across several busy roads. I agree with some previous posters that excessive hand-holding can be counter-productive, and later they wouldn't be able to decide for themselves. My parents used to say things like "we'll cross after that white car", or "after which car shall we go?"

I know this thread is not about learner drivers, but as an instructor I met some 17-year-old learners who looked as if they had never crossed a road independently in their lives, and found it very difficult to judge speed of cars, and to make decisions. I've seen instructors of child cycling groups getting an army of children to turn right in front of oncoming traffic, calling out to them "make your own decisions, guys."

wanderings- I think that'a really good post.

And yes, DC need to learn to be safe on pavements and crossing roads, and like everything else you teach it in an age appropriate way. So when they are too small to comprehend the dange, you just have to keep them safe by keeping them close, ideally held when small I'd say that applies to all toddlers and pretty much all but the exceptional in KS1. In KS2 (from age 7) you can expect considerably greater reliability in following instructions and better understanding danger. Assessing distance is however still fairly immature. But the top of KS2 is the time when DC need to practice being safe by themselves - telling you when it's safe to cross the road, seeing scooting toddlers as the hazard they are (you don't want to be knocked into the road by one falling off)

There is a spike in the numbers of DC being involved in road incidents age 11 - ie when they go to secondary and go alone. That's why practice in the couple of years before that, culminating in permission to go out alone is very important (well, to me, at least)

It's not remotely comparable to when I was a child - so much more traffic, and so many more wheeled things (scooters, child and adult cyclists) on pavements these days make the hazard level totally different.

There's a road near me that's technically 30mph but it continues from a nsl road so there are always idiots driving way too fast tiny, narrow pavement. I always see kids wobbling along on their bikes. So scary!

There doesn't seem to be any road safety tv ads anymore either I know it's years ago but the tufty club used to always be on tv and produced games etc to educate we were also given reflective bags and armbands in school

I have seen this video it is terrible ,but the little boy was very lucky,
One of my sons friend found out the hard way,he and his wife were crossing a main road which wasnt very busy at the time, the friend walked on leaving the little boy following, a motor bike came zooming towards them hit the little boy and then veered towards the mother who was pushing a 3 week old baby in a small pram,
Sadly both children were killed ,mother broken legs,father escaped with nothing but shock,
I couldnt believe anyone would cross any road leaving a child trailing behind, of course the father was guilt ridden, and turned to alcohol and drugs,he is also dead now, mum went on to marry again and had other children

I knew an 11 year old who dashed in front of a car doing 30mph without looking. She died.
I hate this. I have a friend whose 5 year old constantly does this and she never holds his hand or makes him hold the buggy when waiting to cross the road. I just don’t get it.
My very sensible, clever, grown-up seven year old still doesn’t have the awareness to cross roads safely and I always make them hold my hand when crossing. It’s just not worth it!

Mua kids are 9 and 6 and mostly we still hold hands (the 9yo sometimes doesn't when walking into school!)

I still instinctively always walk on the outer side, nearest the edge of the pavement. Ie I put myself between my child (or children) and the road. The youngest one gets a bit cross with me, because depending what side of the road we are one, I end up holding her left hand which is her 'sucky thumb' hand (separate issue but think she's finally growing out of that )

I'm a tad pathological about roads and struggle with the thought of them eventually having to cross roads by themselves.

@princesstiasmum

Oh my goodness- that’s just awful

ecumenicumenicalmatter
I remember that study, slightly older than 8 to calculate: distance to cross, speed of approaching traffic and individual walking speed.
Around 12 but only if they’d had practise at gauging this before.

I’ll say it again. It’s a practical skill. You can’t tech it by telling them, or holding them firmly by the wrist.
You have to show them by walking with them along dangerous roads very often.

Once they’re 11, they’ll want to walk to and home from school to get in with their new mates.
If you’ve held their hand until they were ten, and suddenly let them free on the roads, trying to jockey for social position on the walk home then you are putting them in much more danger than allowing a six yr old to scoot or run along a pavement unhindered.

Thank you for the post. I don't always hold DD's hand (she's 9.5yo) but will if it's really busy. I never let her walk ahead if we're with friends though because of driveways. She isn't looking ahead enough while chatting to watch for cars reversing or driving out.

I will however always hold DS's hand. He's 3.5yo. He sometimes, not often, will stand or walk next to me without holding my hand. I definitely won't let him do that anymore.

We do talk a lot about crossing the road. I get DD to choose a suitable spot and tell us when to cross. She needs to practise, but to do so as safely as possible.

Blue yes it was terrible too to see the parents grief, but the dad knew he shoud have been watching the child,he was only 4
I am surprised he didnt kill himself, he was often on the verge i think, but he had good friends who helped him, the poor little baby was only 3 weeks old, the bike rider was in hospital for a long time too, but he was also speeding, even if he wasnt i dont think it would have made any difference to the outcome,the baby was thrown out of her pram,
It happened quite close to where i live, and i heard the sirens that day ,i live near the hospital too, and i thought oh dear someone is in trouble, never dreamed it would be who it was

I recently had to discretely tell my older children to stick close by me all the time, so their Nan can't suddenly grab their hand and cross them over the road as she is unsteady and inattentive to the road safety now due to age related issues.

I felt slightly bad that I was judging her as a possible danger, but its in no way comparable to my children's safety.

As a driver, I hate it too. They seem to run around completely unrestrained. I'd never let my dog do that, however well trained - and a good dog is far more reliable than your average human infant.

I dread ankle biters suddenly running into the road off the pavement.Those leash things are sensible and I wish more people would use them.

The main thing that irritates me is when I see people on MN suggesting scooters for children as young as 3 in order to avoid using a buggy. Sorry, but this is asking for trouble. They can very easily shoot off the pavement and they have no sense at that age.

I always hold my littlests hand at the road, sends me absolutely white that she could be taken from me in seconds for the sake of holding my hand.
I’ve been ran over as a child though so I suspect my judgement is clouded by that

Can’t find the article. It wasn’t just about judging speed it was about judging speed of something coming towards you as opposed to something going past you iykwim. So basically when you’re about to cross and looking down the road, kids under 8 just couldn’t reliably judge how fast a car was coming towards them.