Couple warned over allowing children to cycle to school alone

[OldLadyKnowsNothing]

From the Telegraph.

flipping nora - just googe street mapped walked their route - there's not too many side roads to cross - but OMG the number of driveways for cars to drive out of is quite scary.

I don't think there's anything wrong with promoting freedom and independence, fact is - we're not in Switzerland, or Sweden, or Germany, and we're not living 30yrs ago (when yes "everyone" did walk) we're living now.

There are plenty of ways to promote indepdence and freedom without leaving your 8 and 5yr old to make their own way to school along a route - which to be frank is fully of nightmares for bikers (trees in the middle of 'fecking pavements - god I hated those as a kid ), or pedestrians in general (driveways galore) - even worse than cars parking up on the pavement as you're walking along as they have to CROSS the pavement to get in/out of their drives.

I do wonder - would they leave those 2 children at home on their own for any length of time together? And what would "MN" say if the report was that "8yr old and 5yr old left home alone for X amount of time on a daily basis".

5 is borderline for me only because of the traffic. No need for SS though IMO, just a personal decision.

DS's new school in Oz allows children in Yr3 and up to cycle to school (and provides storage for bikes) and he will be doing that, so will 7.5yrs. Different though as we will be in the burbs as will the school.

I come at this from the perspective of someone whose DH, who is 6 ft 3 and has been cycling on the road for 30 years, was knocked off his bike by an idiot of a motorist, his head hit the windscreen, which shattered, and a big crack appeared in DHs helmet

he was very badly shaken, some minor cuts and grazes - i ordered him to A&E to get checked out!

The Dr there said the helmet probably saved him being severely hurt or even killed - and that was a 13 stone adult in a low impact collision

NO WAY would I let an 8 and 5 yr old cycle unaccompanied. could a reversing motorist even SEE a 5 yo behind them? I am extremely careful even going on and off our drive cos of kids on bikes uop and down the cul de sac

8 is too young to be responsible for an unpredicatable 5 yo who MIGHT do something silly - 8yo cannot be held responsible & if anything happens to their younder sib they will carry guilt forever, let alone the trauma of having witnessed the accident and having no grown up with them to help deal with it

For once I agree with Boris

I know, I did wonder about his choice of words...

To the people umming and ahhing over whether it makes it ok because they cycle on the pavement..it really dosen't, since it is ILLEGAL in the UK to do so.

Personally I think 5 is too young to walk to school (even with an 8yr old) and cycling makes it even more dangerous BUT to involve SS in this is ridiculous.

I live in central Tokyo where riding on pavements is NOT illegal, they are a bloody menace though and i've nearly been knocked over on more than one occasion. Also people let there tiny little kids walk to school on their own and I am talking 4, 5, 6 yrs old. Again, I wouldn't do it but I dont think the school should have any say in this either.

Definitely think this shouldn't be allowed - they shouldn't be on the pavement as already said and a 5yo at least shouldn't be on the road amongst 'school run traffic'. I'm not namby pamby with my kids but I wouldn't leave a 5yo at home for 20 mins or however long so wouldn't leave them out either. Also, re the point about the drives, a 5yo at least cannot be seen from behind some large cars, especially 4x4's so if they're crossing lots of drives at a busy time it only needs one to reverse, even looking, and hit them.

Maybe I'm in a minority too, and give my kids lots of independence in other ways, but when dd was 5 I felt it was very important to drop her off/pick her up from school - got to see her friends (check she had some), see the teacher in case there was any big news from that day/anything urgent for the next etc. Understand completely that not everyone can do the school run (I didn't half the time because of work) but then a friend/grandparent/nursery worker etc still fills that role.

Riven sorry for the hijack is there any chance you could do what i do and be your dd official escort in the taxi? I had a bit of a fight with Education over previous escort and driver lying etc, and i became his escort i get paid as well as i am doing the same job as amy them would be only doing it right .I had to go through full disclosure etc and i could take any child if wanted

agree with toccatandfudge regarding traffic. We all walked about a mile to school when young but there was much, much less traffic. In my row of six houses I think there was only one car. Now many houses have at least 1-3 cars parked outsideand so many 17'18 yr olds are driving - this was unheard of when I was young.
Remember cycling with my DC to school. The eldest (about 6yrs at the time) just left the pavement and drove right across the road to join me where I was cycling on the road adjacent to him. Weird stuff goes through their heads, same with crossing the road - thought he was road savvy only to have him dash across a road without checking.

I was told by SS not to let my 8yo walk/scooter half a mile to school alone (we live in a rural small town area, only one potentially busy road to cross and it's only ever busy because of the damn school run traffic!! And SS couldn't possibly clarify when it would be safe to let him do so, either, so presumably I'll be chaperoning him until he's 90 ), so am not surprised the couple was reprimanded .

I wouldn't let my 5yo to do it, either, but I still despise the person who reported them to SS for it .

"I was told by SS not to let my 8yo walk/scooter half a mile to school alone"

Under what circumstances? I don;t think this is the usual advice.

Under any circumstances; I was told that "in the view of SS" he was too young to ever be unsupervised (he doesnt have SN, I was not told that he had been in any trouble or danger, not that SS ever met or interviewed him you understand).

Those are all the circumstances far as I know.
I am now ignoring their advice in that he is now 10yo and goes out to play without a supervising adult and with all the other 9-10yo local boys who are also only supervised by their mobile phone connections.

I think it is really dangerous. The other day outside my son's school a 6 year old fell off his bike straight into the road in front of a car. Luckly the car stopped before hitting him as it hadn't been going that fast. If there had been a less carefull driver the car would have hit the boy. By the way the boy's mum was actually with him but had started chatting to someone so was a bit behind him.
There is no way I would let anyone of primary school age travel to school alone on foot or by bike. The pavements are narrow here, roads are busy and there are lots of driveways. It isn't worth the risk.
From the article it sounds more like they are letting them go by themselves due to lack of anyone to take them at that time or why wouldn't they be going by themselves both ways?
Obviously there are much quieter areas than where I live that are safer but I doubt Dulwich is one of them.

Cars leaving driveways should not be reversing onto a main road.

I´m in Germany where we have cycle paths.

The primary school mine went to asked that they didn´t bike unaccompanied until year 3.
(Bear in mind they start school at 6)

The biggest "problem" for me would be giving the 8yr old responsibility for the 5yr old-I don´t agree with that.

When my oldest biked alone I still accompanied the younger until they were also old enough to go alone.

We are moving to Belgium in a couple of weeks time. Apart from the idea that we may get some chickens for the back garden, the greatest draw is that DD can cycle the whole nine minutes to school. the whole country seems to be much better set up to cater for bicycles though.
The involvement/threat of SS's is ridiculous in this case.

rubyrubyruby, as far as I know it is the law; or at least in the Highway Code. Cars should never reverse on to a main road; they should be reversed in to park. It's far more dangerous to drive backwards into the flow of traffic, never mind the risk to small pedestrians.

Regardless of if it is or isn't law, drivers will and so reverse out their driveways, anyway.

A child near ds's schol was knocked ver on his scooter from a car coming out it's driveway FORWARD.

Accidents happen. It is unfair to expect the 8 year old to know how to deal with an accident. Equally, it would be absurd ro expect the 5 year old to deal with the consequences of any accident that might happen to her brother.

If this story had never been in the papers and we read that a 5 or 8 year old had a nasty accident on the way to school on their bike unnaccompanied by an adult, everyone would be up in arms that these children were allowed to take this journey alone and asking why the school, if they knew the situation, had not stepped in over the questionable parenting decisions of these parents.

How irresponsible! There is NO WAY I would let my 8 year old cycle to school until he has done the cycling proficiency test in Year 5 and even then I would supervise, the roads are far too busy and there are no proper cycle paths where we live in Greater Manchester.
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I wish I lived in Dulwich, I would let my children (if they were a bit older) ride with them. I do think five is a bit young but I don't think the parents are behaving badly.

I expect everybody would be a lot happier if the children were driven to school.
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I only drive if I am running late, we live a mile from my son's school so he cannot walk on his own yet.