Families riding bikes

[Cam77]

Some probably won’t agree but it’s starting to annoy me. Whenever I/we go out for a walk we often have to rush out out the way of families bike rides (sometimes both parents and two/three kids) cycling along the pavements.
I know a family bike ride is a nice activity. But how can the person walking toward you practice effective social distancing when a group of four/five people is zooming often unsighted around the corner at 5-10mph?
And the parent(s) often stay at the back of the family group with little kids in front, who often have virtually zero awareness of the environment ahead.
It’s getting to the point where I don’t want to take my child/dog for a quick walk because we can’t get out of the way of all the large groups of family cyclists and heavy breathing joggers bursting round corners. What’s wrong with a nice stroll? That’s what’s people in China did when went into lockdown (Though not everyday. Most kids just went for a quick walk round the block, with face mask) once a week). I keep hearing about they fiddled the figures but actually the biggest difference is just that they acted with sensible caution.

Adults are not supposed to cycle on pavements. It is tacitly understood that this does not apply to children on their very first bike by everyone I've ever met in RL.

If every child in the country was only allowed to practise cycling in a park, how many hours would they tend to accumulate? Would they be up to doing Bikability (which replaced cycling proficiency) in year 6?

How many times a week do you take your school-age 6-year-old child to the park to practise on a bike after school?

I thought you were not supposed to cycle on pavements?

Strictly, it's illegal.
In practice, it's generally recognised that it's likely yo be safer for under 10s to be on the pavement than the road and so it's allowed. But obvious they should only do so if it's safe for everyone including themselves. Kids not being under proper control on a pavement are a risk to themselves, eg from cars reversing off driveways.

Like many things, it should be simply a matter of consideration, courtesy and common sense all round.

All children have access to some form of open space.

I didn't.

I do not think the woman who thinks five-year-olds should be cycling on the roads is one to talk when it comes to 'valid points'. It's not safe for them, and it's not safe for other people on the road.

As we all know that, and no-one is going to start putting their five-year-old on the road, all such a rule would achieve, if it was actually in place, would be fewer people who could ride a bike.

Kids not being under proper control on a pavement are a risk to themselves, eg from cars reversing off driveways.

Like many things, it should be simply a matter of consideration, courtesy and common sense all round

Yes to the second. In RL, this is how it works. I told my children to stop for pedestrians, loose dogs, and so on. On social media, it doesn't work like that.

However, they're not being a risk to themselves with cars reversing off driveways.
People reversing their cars are posing a risk to everyone using the pavement. I have done my best to hammer it in about cars reversing, as a subset of the "look out for other people being careless" rule.

PotholeParadise If you had access to a school, yes you did.

Exactly so with cars...the danger is the car, but children who aren't sufficiently aware of such dangers are at risk if the parent isn't adequately supervising them. It's very much the same thing as holding hands with a small child, then just when they're crossing the road, until you know they can assess and avoid dangers.

I have seen this happen a little on my daily walks. I kind of feel that only children should be cycling on pavements except on very busy roads. It is slightly dangerous if they catch you by surprise.

PotholeParadiseIf you had access to a school, yes you did.

You're saying the parents in the street should have gathered us all up and taken us a mile away to break into school property to practise on the playing field?

What was that you were saying about law earlier? You realise that trespass is definitely against the law?

P.S. if you're trying to make some point about children having access to open space for exercise in general, I didn't go to school.

Since when was cycling on the pavement acceptable? Of course the OP is not being unreasonable.

One of the reasons Amsterdam is the cycle capital of the world is because they used to have high rates of child deaths from road cycling in the 70s. After a father lost his child he started a campaign 'stop the child murder' - which led to the safe cycling infrastructure they have now. You cant ban people from cycling and if the roads aren't safe for kids, the pavement is the only choice

As long as they’re being considerate of pedestrians then of course children should cycle on the path - I would be very concerned if I saw a young child cycling on the road with cars regularly passing (is that even aloud??). We get children cycling on the paths here quite often - if they come across a pedestrian they cycle slowly or stop completely.