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 don't know how the hell I survived my childhood.

I was given an off road motorbike at the age of 11 and used to ride along the canal/main road/railway evading the police.
We made "Bombs" out of real life explosives that someone's Dad nicked from down the pit.
We rode horses bareback (they weren't even our horses)
We used to provoke my uncles herd of cows into chasing us as a dare.
We did cartwheels along the aquaduct wall (it's 18" wide and 40foot high).
We lost several friends to accidental death.
My Mother believed she didn't need to watch me because the "Holy Spirit" was.

In the early sixties, my uncle had a flat back lorry with just little side boards at the edges, on Sunday's in the summer he would load the three piece suite on the back and off we would go in to Derbyshire, all the family sat on the furniture. Pregnant women were in the cab. What fun we had.

Grew up in South Africa. Would walk to friends houses from about age 5. This went on until I was out with my mum and we encountered someone with a gun.

Used to run free around the garden from around 3 and climb the trees. The gardens are quite big there, I don't think we lived anywhere under an acre or two so I doubt anyone would have heard me if I fell.

No seatbelts or car seats. I once sat in the back of my dads pickup truck as there wasn't room in the front.

It's a wonder I'm still alive really.

We would also hitchhike, to anywhere. Home on the train with no ticket. Lorries were the best as they always took us further.
I don't know where we got our ideas from but they seem so risky now.
In fact I only stopped hitching because Peter Sutcliffe started his spree

Lying down in the boot of our estate car snoozing on the motorway.
Riding a pony with no hat on.
Riding a bike on the road with no helmet.

Wearing a shell suit and sitting next to the 1970’s old dodgy fire when I was cold

All ore mobile (sometimes feels as if ore telephone!) -
Swam in the Thames bunking off school with group of friends fairly regularly.
Rowed on river alone or with friends as kid ‘borrowing’ a row boat.
Out all day playing parents no way of knowing where. Home when hungry. Everyone did this.
Biked everywhere on roads - no helmets - rudimentary road safety lesson at school.
Youth hostelled by bike across southern England (to bath and back I think) when 15 in small group - all 15.
Climbed anything going including tall trees and explored derelict houses which we were totally banned from going in.
Drove my parents car when older sibling let me have a go (NOT on public road.
Flew alone transatlantic with sister one year older (think we were 7 and 8) unaccompanied but looked after by ‘air hostess’.
Now lots of what we got up to is literally unimaginable but felt free and fun and my parents and friends parents were careful and great parents - just different times !!!

accountant I love that!

The ‘We didn’t die’ argument holds some water. There has been a significant drop in child mortality between 1960 and 2005. After that, it’s fairly level. One assumes it’s because of safer medical care, campaigns around SIDS and seatbelts etc. That assumption is wrong.
By far the greatest cause of child death in 1960-1980 was congenital conditions that were life limiting. Spina Bifida, Down Syndrome, Cystic Fibrosis, congenital heart disease etc.

Termination have minimised the number of children born with congenital abnormalities and the management of children born with conditions like cystic fibrosis have been hugely improved such that life expectancy is now well into adulthood.

The number of deaths from accidents is reasonably static.
The number of SIDS deaths is reasonably constant but increased between 2015 and 2016. It is still a truly tiny number (which doesn’t reduce tragedy for individuals).

Climbing up anything we could find and jumping off it. I was a member of a previously all-boys gang in our village and one of the conditions of membership was being able to jump off a shed into a bush without flinching.

Gangs generally - there were several in our village. We all had our own dens and territory, which would be raided by other gangs occasionally. Gang time was spent patrolling territory by bicycle, making up rude songs about other gangs and their members, and jumping off stuff.

I never went in for building sites as my dad works in construction and would have caught me, but you couldn't keep me out of abandoned buildings.

As a teenager, I'd ask for a lift to the train station to go to a nearby town for shopping and return much later. No mobile phones or online tickets so my parents usually had no idea where I really was. When I was in my early 20s and on a birthday trip to the theatre I remember my mum asking me how I knew my way round London so well considering "I'd only been there a couple of times". I never did anything risky or untoward, I just liked going places by myself.

Helped out at a riding school on weekends - late 80s. We'd fetch the horses from the field and ride bareback to the yard, leading a pony each side, down the main road in a huge cavalcade. Same in reverse at the end of the day. If we weren't leading another pony we'd canter on the verge and jump ditches. Some of us were only 10-11 years old!
The owner of the riding school had an ancient pick-up truck and we'd all crowd into the back part as she sped down the dual carriageway!

Went to primary school on the tube every day on my own in the 70 s with the ira blowing up various bits of the underground. I never us d to buy a ticket, it was easy at Angel where I got out to just slip through, if the ticket guy noticed, all he could do was bang on his booth. Used to get sweets with the money, and later cigarettes, lambert and butler.

Walked home alone daily from P1.
Played out all day, maybe quickly nipping home for lunch. Sometimes taking lunch out for a picnic.
Played at the top of an old quarry.
Walked for miles away from home, very rural, getting lost, but always somehow not too lost.
It was standard to share the back seat between at least 4 of us, sometimes more.

The things I did as a child were considered dangerous then but it was still done.
The most dangerous thing was taking home the turf from the bog .We'd sit on top of the turf in the trailer. We'd count the sods of turf as the fell off. It was scary and fun. We'd have been killed instantly if we fell off but everyone did it.

Playing in the fields around my house. Going on adventures until my mum called us in. Her voice would travel through the fields.

Hitch hiking. I loved when trucks stopped, we'd have the best craic with truckers.

Walked to and from school without an adult from the age of 5.
Played out in the field nearby for hours, only coming home for tea.
Sat on someone's lap in the front passenger seat of the car
Loads more if I could only remember!

The ‘We didn’t die’ argument holds some water. There has been a significant drop in child mortality between 1960 and 2005. After that, it’s fairly level. One assumes it’s because of safer medical care, campaigns around SIDS and seatbelts etc. That assumption is wrong.
By far the greatest cause of child death in 1960-1980 was congenital conditions that were life limiting. Spina Bifida, Down Syndrome, Cystic Fibrosis, congenital heart disease etc.
Termination have minimised the number of children born with congenital abnormalities and the management of children born with conditions like cystic fibrosis have been hugely improved such that life expectancy is now well into adulthood.
The number of deaths from accidents is reasonably static.
The number of SIDS deaths is reasonably constant but increased between 2015 and 2016. It is still a truly tiny number (which doesn’t reduce tragedy for individuals).

Are you cherry picking? What about deaths as a result of car accidents? Either as a passenger, bike rider or pedestrian?

And I want the figures to take into account number of cars in use today

cherry that was very interesting and informative. I assumed that deaths from accidents were greatly reduced, so surprising that they are not.

Rock climbing on the beach when the sea was coming in below me and my parents were about half a mile away subbing themselves.
Standing on the back seat of my dads car with my head poking out the sun roof whilst he drove.
Sitting in the boot when we had friends coming out with us.
My Nan had a big oil thing in her garden, presumably to refill whatever took it. Heating or cooker or something. I use to poke a stick in it and rub the oil on to the dry grass in a line and put a match to it and watch the fire spread along back towards to oil storage then stamp it out when it reached the container. Sometimes we’d wait until the fire was half way up the container before we put it out.

From the age of 6, we played in our neighbourhood until the street lights came on. (I'm American) Now i would never let my DS do that.

All the usual - no seatbelts in the car (5 children on the back seat!). It was a treat to ride in your friends estate car because you could ride in the boot (No seats).
We used to use baking trays as sledge down the local hill in the snow - you had to aim right otherwise you'd end up in the freezing ditch.
At school we were upstairs but the w/o does opened by sliding and we could have easily jumped out if we wanted to. Strangely enough we didn't and we didn't need restricting with Windows that only opened half an inch!
We would go off on bikes to other villages and end up wading in the streams. No pho as to call home.

Car accidents are hard to quantify reasonably accurately because of the increase in car use and speeds. You wouldn’t be comparing like with like but road traffic accidents are not and have never been a major cause of child death compared to both congenital conditions and infections (both common childhood illnesses and things like gastroenteritis, pneumonia and sepsis). Sorry I am a bit of an anorak about mortality data!

Going for a ride on a make shift raft on the rainwater filled "pond" left by foundations of a big old house. The boys punting the raft were about 9. I was about 4 and couldn't swim. Early 1970s.

No adults aware.

Early childhood the usual sliding down stairs in sleeping bags, riding around in the boot of my dads Orion, climbing on everything and playing pretty rough games in the playground - a particular rough one included taking people “hostage”

As a teen - scares the shit out of me looking back! Lots and lots of random boys in cars - just getting beeped at and jumping in for a lift (thank GOD nothing sinister ever happened to us), loads of house parties with drug taking - we had a whole summer of acid trips being the “thing” and we spent our time talking to pot plants at house parties or treking through the marshes looking for fairies . A lot of my boy mates were joyriders so they’d pull up in a random car and we’d jump in and off we’d go 80mph through the back lanes at 3am.
Honestly makes me feel ill how close me and all my friends must have come to serious serious trouble or injury.
My child is going to be chipped and tracked

We used to go on holiday to Devon or Cornwall every year, and I would always make a friend who was staying in the same hotel/B&B. I can vividly remember going off ice-skating with one of these friends, and also to the pier/amusements with another, no adults with us, in a strange town/country (we’re Scottish). 80s, aged about 10.

When I was little, any child could buy fireworks. In the two weeks leading to Bonfire Night, me and my little sister saved our pocket money, kept buying fireworks, and stored them in a drawer in our bedroom. We used to take them out and count them, excitedly gloating!