13 deaths in January, heading for worst in over 10 yrs

[CJ]

A simple view maybe, but there's more cyclists on the roads ...

Really? I can believe reports of more bike commuting in London and the apparent bloom of wannabe roadies at weekends, but the London rise is only in the centre and if national travel survey etc. figures are to be believed, both phenomena are negated by a continuation of the gradual decline of everyday cycling in all the rest of London and most other places in the Whole Country.

For people who spend their working days in the Metropolitain bubble, visiting the countryside only at weekends, it may well appear that cycling is booming, when really it isn't.

[pwa]

Cycling among adults is booming where I live, 20 miles west of Cardiff. On Saturday and Sunday mornings our busiest road (B4265) has cyclist after cyclist going past, at a much higher rate than ten or twenty years ago. Commuting on that road is still a minority activity, but it has increased a bit. If there is a group I do not see cycling as much it is children.

With regard to safety, in this mainly rural / small town area I feel safer than ten years ago, with drivers passing me with more care and less aggression. I rarely cycle in large, built-up areas, and I last cycled in London about 20 years ago, so I can only listen to the experiences of others.

[CJ]

If there is a group I do not see cycling as much it is children.

But the journey to and from school used to account for the major part of the total cycling count in the 70s and 80s. If that's gone, it probably cancels out the modest growth in cycling by adults and bodes ill for the future.

[pwa]

Chris,

I think children in my rural neighbourhood have bikes but are not using them as much as I did in the 1960s/70s. It's probably all to do with the way children play now. But I am seeing a lot more adult leisure cyclists passing through the village at weekends and summer evenings.

[Vorpal]

I used to see quite a few children and young people out playing on their bikes (mostly BMXs) in the village where we lived (rural Essex). I even saw some early to mid teen aged kids out on the lanes a few times.

Teaching Bikeability, I saw that the attitude of the school made a huge difference in how many kids rode their bikes to school. Some schools actively discouraged it, and others actively encouraged it, though most were in between. The difference between a school actively encouraging cycling, and actively discouraging it, is like night and day. I saw marked differences in Bikeability participation, interest, and the capability of the children. There were also differences in how the staff treated us, how supportive the teachers were, etc. At one school (that was a joy to work with), they had two large stands of good cycle parking, and in good weather, it was consistently full, and even overflowing so that kids were locking their bikes up on the fences.

Other schools had no cycle parking, or only a couple of stands. One head teacher told me she didn't want bicycles on the school grounds becuase they were a 'hazard'. It turned out that their risk assessment had identified a couple of issues which I volunteered to help address, but the head didn't want any help. The truth was (I think, from her offhand comments) that she was worried someone would scratch her car because the cycle stands (two loops) were right next to the premium head teacher parking spot.

Exactly one child cycled to school there, and he had to get special permission. His father commuted by bicycle, and accompanied the child to school each day by bicycle. On Bikeability days, the bikes that were brought to school were all sequested in a small, gated play area, and we had to get staff to unlock it, then lock it again after Bikeability. That school also had the lowest pass rate for Level 2 of any school I worked at when I was teaching Bikeability. Also, it's the only school where I ever sent any children back to school because they didn't have enough road sense to stand on a street corner safely, let alone ride a bike in traffic.