What did you do when you were a kid that is considered dangerous now?

[Karlwho]

Just out of interest.
When I was little (7-10), I'd play outside around the neighbourhood with no adults and not a mobile between my friends and I. We'd go home when we were hungry.

I was born in the 70s and we were very rural, and lived near a disused slate quarry. I used to play alone down the woods, in streams and up trees and so on from a young age, and by about 8 I was climbing over fences into the quarry and clambering down quarry holes and through tunnels and so on. I did it regularly. My parents knew, they just told me to be careful. I did all my GCSE revision down a quarry hole where it was really quiet and sunny and warm.

I used to lie on the parcel shelf of my grandad's car whilst he bombed it down the M1.

So many things...
Sitting at the back of the bus on the way home from school with our feet dangling over the edge whilst we held onto the pole. No door in those days.
Walking to bus stop a mile and a half away aged four with my six year old sister.
Cycling on my own, or with a friend, the twelve miles to school aged nine.
Being allowed to wander around the beach collecting Hubba Bubba bottles Tom get the deposit back aged four.
Swimming out to the raft and diving off aged about six. Moving on to jumping and diving off the pier aged from about eight.
Running down the slipway from the pier when red flag was up and waves were crashing over the walls.
Going to Calais on day trips with friends from about twelve years of age.

Days out on the marshes collecting sticklebacks leaving with a sandwich about ten in the morning and getting home about six in the afternoon. We were about seven or eight.
Going clubbing at thirteen.
Camping for weekends without adults from about fourteen. We did it so we could sail and kayak.
Riding pillion on a motorcycle from around five.

Going up to the bumps on a playground item called a lullaby. Swings that went very high and then jumping off - about ten foot high swings. A witches hat swing/roundabout that we played chase on. Twenty foot unguarded slides with long legs you could do fireman pole drops down. Spiders web roundabouts- my lip is still scarred from the friction burn I got by falling off inside the web.

Born in the 80s here. I also remember sitting in the foot well of the car near peoples feet being told to duck if they saw a police car

Going hiking on trailers mountains (USA) deep in the woods, and sleeping out overnight with a group of kids. The oldest was 15. I was 4.

Riding on top of our VW caper, clinging on to the roof bars- so much fun.
Riding in the back of an open pick up truck through Manhattan and North for several hours on the highways and on back roads.

It was the 60s. I was allowed to stay at home alone for an hour or so when I was 6 (I was off school because I was unwell, and DM had to get food in).

We played on building sites, played in the derelict ruins of bombed out houses, walked 1.5 miles home from school and across a busy main road alone at 9, at 10 friend and I were allowed to make a 6 mile bus trip to play in a very big woodland without an adult, at 11 I went swimming with friends but no adult, at 14 I was allowed to go up to London for the day with a friend.

No-one died, no-one was abducted or came to grief in any unpleasant way.

sorry that was trail less mountains- real bushwhacking with a map and compass.

Everything

Oh, and I rode pillion on my DF's motorbike when I was 4!

My brother did similar.

I've told this on here before, but the sheds for bikes, prams etc at the (council) flats where we lived had asbestos roofs. DBro was constantly told not to play on them, because he would fall through.

When he finally fell through, it was into the shed of neighbours who both worked full time, and the shed was locked.

DM had to call the fire brigade to get him out.

In the 60s my mum had to start work slightly before her friend arrived to babysit. There was a crossover of about half an hour before she left and the friend arrived by bus. she used to leave my toddler sister strapped in her buggy asleep for a while the changeover took place 😮

No-one died, no-one was abducted or came to grief in any unpleasant way.

Have to admit, I do have an injury that's troubled me all my life from free roaming as a toddler. In similar free roaming as a teen I did have a number of encounters with dodgy men, one of them at least felt like a very lucky escape. I also saw a few kids get knocked down on their bikes, worst injury a broken leg fortunately. Road accidents are supposed to have reduced since the 70s. It's not entirely true to say that no one got hurt back then and being safety conscious is silly.

We'd go to the caravan at weekends and my Dad would do his own thing (my mother wouldn't come) and I'd go off and do my own thing all day in the woods, on rope swings I'd found, picking wild berries and stuff and sometimes cooking in the caravan on my own - all primary school age.

Went out on bikes all day, no mobiles, we went miles! Just home before dark. No helmets or anything.

Rode ponies to and from the field with no hat, just a headcollar.

No-one died

Possibly not. With what you describe. But kids did die far more in accidents than they do now. Safer cars, seatbelt laws and better advice about SIDS has made a significant difference to childhood mortality.

Riding a bike barefoot let alone without a helmet metal pedals too!; jumping out of my bedroom window to play in the garden whilst avoiding breaking the not allowed downstairs rule; lighting the house fire at the age of 5. In the boot of my dad's car because he was giving his friends a lift home; using my dad's power tools as a latch key kid age 9.

Most of these doesn't sound that bad to me.
Yes the seat belts and SIDS advice is obviously now better.
But I think we should actually go back to a lot of this.

" no one died"

Going out in bars and pubs underage. It’s funny that there was so much emphasis on stranger danger for very young children, but chatting (and worse) to random men was one of our main pastimes as a young teen.
There was a group if blokes in their early 20s who used to turn up after school and talk to the year 11 girls. Now I would think of them as paedophiles but at the time it was perfectly acceptable and in plain sight.

I love reading these replies, although some scare me haha.
Something daft my dh and his brother's did: the three of th em were out playing, and my bil who must've been 3/4 at the time was approached by a man who tried to get him into a car. Fortunately, my dh and his other brother spotted it and ran at the man with sticks/bikes swearing and shouting for help.
My mil found out about this a couple of years ago - they didn't want to tell her at the time incase they weren't allowed out aga in

No-one died, no-one was abducted or came to grief in any unpleasant way.

Don't be ridiculous of course they did. Even the most uneducated of us knows about the moors murderers, Genette Tate, Roy Tuttle, Mary Bell, lots of other child deaths and abductions.

At 8 I watched my friend get crushed under the wheels of a lorry when we were riding our bikes on our street. At 10 I got knocked down by a car on my way to school.

When I was at primary, 2 brothers in our school drowned in a local river. At secondary two boys and their father died after going through the car windscreen in a car accident, no seatbelt law then.

It wasn't some beautiful utopia where everyone was shiny and happy.

No-one died, no-one was abducted or came to grief in any unpleasant way.

But they did.

In my primary school a boy in my class was hit by a car and killed trying to cross the motorway while out playing. A boy a few years below mine was knocked down and killed the following year. My baby cousin died of AIDS, or cot death as it was called then. In my first year of secondary school, a girl in my year was killed in a car crash along with both her siblings and one of her parents. Broken bones were common, there was almost always someone in school or amongst the neighbourhood kids with a plaster cast. Plenty of kids were knocked down in low speed collisions, kids getting knocked off their bike and earning some bumps and bruises from it was also fairly common. We were always hurting ourselves. I went to A&E once when I flayed my calf open climbing over a railing, I fell and the spike caught my leg. Another time I went with a burn on my arm from falling against the grate of our coal fire. Yet another time I was there because we decided to play "dog sledding" on the ice, one person lashed six of us together with scarves to be the dogs and then held on while we pulled her across the ice, I slipped and fell and pulled everyone on top of me, split my head open and broke three fingers.

While none of us on the thread died, lots of others did but they're not hear to reminisce about all the dangerous things they used to do.

My brother once had an accident with a park roller. We had a game where a few of us would pull the handle down then take it in turns to be the only one holding it as it flew back up. But he and his friend tried moving it first and it went over his leg (permanent ligament damage). We still played the game though

AIDS, should say SIDS. Fucking autocorrect.

I once walked home alone from nursery school through inner city streets. There was no one at home when I got there.

We drive through Spain in the back of a van on unsecured garden chairs. It was hot so we opened the side door and held on tight.

We also made the most amazing dens in the quarry.