to think it's *not* more dangerous on the streets for kids than when we were kids?

[Echobelly]

I do hear parents saying they don't let kids who are old enough, IMO, to be out and about a bit (say 10-11) saying 'But it's not like it was in our days' or 'There are so many nutters out there'

I'm in early 40s and was walking about 10-15mins to local shops and back and forth to best mates house 10 mins away by age 7 (suburban London). I didn't let out my kids that young mainly as they didn't have friends living that close and there are so few kids of that age around independently I was worried someone would report me! I did start sending DD to corner shop (less than 30seconds away) from age about 7 and a half and I think she only reported to me once someone expressing concern about her (and not calling the police, thankfully!)

I think cars, the biggest danger, were just as big a danger 'in my day' and in fact people generally drive more slowly and safely in towns than they used to (other than those looking at phones )

I think 'nutters' have always been an infintessimally small risk and there's no evidence there are 'more nutters these days' - just more news channels!

DD started walking to and from school about a mile away from final term at primary as I knew she would need to make her own way to and from secondary school and most people do seem to accept kids walking then, but I don't get why so many don't seem to allow them to do anything unsupervised until right at that moment.

I live where I grew up & it is a lot different than the late 80s and 90s when I would playout. The area is more built up due to retail & housing developments. People do not know each other anymore, when I was a kid there was always someone who knew my parents, grandparents or one of my Aunts, we could not go anywhere without someone knowing who our family was & they would soon tell us to stop & report us to our parents if we were doing anything dangerous, it is not like that here anymore. My DD was only allowed out if she was going somewhere, she was not allowed to hang out on the streets. There is a lot of trouble caused by gangs of teens that come in from other towns just to cause trouble

When I was young I grew up in a quite rough area of London. We used to play out on the green on the estate that all the houses looked out on to. I still had my bike stolen about 3 times. Even with a lock 😂 Once my brother was ON his bike when it got stolen. By another 9yo who threatened to burn him with a cigarette.

This still happens but now it’s not burn you with a cigarette, it’s stab you in the head.

Cars weren’t something we thought about even then really, because we had the green I suppose we didn’t have much to worry about. And we did have the lovely green belt area to ride out to, which wasn’t rough at all, but these days you see people dealing on one of the country road off-roads so even then I’d be wary.

I agree with you, apart from the bit about traffic, there are more cars about. It's not just being hit, it's pollution as well.

Hmm, I'm not sure where I stand on this one.

In the 60s and 70s, when I was growing up, it was normal and usual for children to be seen out on their own or in small groups. At the age of 9, for example, I used to walk about 3/4 of a mile each way to school and back with my 5-year-old sister. The vast majority of children did the same, so there was a steady stream of us all converging on the school at the same time each morning and heading away from it in the afternoons: it was highly unusual for primary school children to be driven to school.

I have a granddaughter who's 8. The school is about the same distance from her home as mine was - but I would not be happy about her walking there alone. It would involve crossing several busy roads, albeit with traffic-lighted crossings on the busiest.
In the 60s there were lollipop ladies/men all over the place at the places where large numbers of children were known to be crossing. These days, there are none, as it's a rare thing for children to be walking. A child walking to school would be very much alone, without the safety in numbers that I and my peers benefited from. That, I think, would make her very vulnerable.

I don't think it's more dangerous. As people have pointed out, pedestrian car accidents have gone down massively. More cars doesn't equal more pedestrians hit by cars.
Some areas have always been dangerous, others change over time. I'm 48 and live in a village and lived in a village (at the opposite end of the country)as a child. We played out then, kids here play out now. I think the main increase in danger is from interactions over the internet, not being outside in the real world.

It depends where you live really.
The bigger cities have had a huge increase in violence, the gap between the haves and have nots is bigger than ever. In cities people tend to keep their head down not look out for each other.
Last week I intervened nicely between two addicts begging off a Autistic young man he was emptying his purse for them.
Yesterday a young child lost was screaming daddy his dad got off the bus from the middle doors with a big pram, the child hopped off before him got lost in the crowd, not one person looked at the young boy, he got through the crowd back on the front door of the bus, I hopped on behind him telling the bus driver to wait, he'd have drove off with the child.
I took him off the bus his dad was there panicking, the boy was shouting Daddy the whole time and no one stopped him.