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Sunday Times - 10th October 1999
Pedalling the safety message to cyclists
Worried about letting her daughter bike to school, Sarah
Wynter found an instructor to help put them on the right road.
FOR many parents, including me,
the school run is a logistical nightmare. How are you supposed to get two
or more children to different schools, in different locations, especially
as they often have to arrive at much the same time? |
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An obvious solution would be to let one of the children
cycle to school. That was my means of transport in the 1960s.Then, cycle
helmets were a rarity and in fact we regarded those who wore them as sissies.
We thought nothing of riding with "no hands" and my own particular speciality
was to ride along with my eyes shut to the count of 10, a practice I gave
up shortly after I hit a tree.
Of course now I would be far more likely to collide with
a car than a conifer. You don't have to be a road safety officer to notice
that there's a lot more traffic on the roads.
And this increase in traffic has led to a decrease in
the number of children who cycle to school. Government figures show that
a mere 2% of school-children use a bicycle to get to school.
While I am more than happy to ride on the pavement or
in the park, the mere idea of them riding on the road near our house in
south London can be enough to fill me with dread. It was obvious then,
that in order to make that transition from bicycle as toy to bicycle as
fully fledged vehicle, some proper instruction was in order. So I decide
to enlist the help of Cycle Training.
This is a business set up by Simeon Bamford. He heads
an army of 15 instructors, all of whom are committed cyclists. At £20
per hour one of them will come to your house and teach your child to cycle
on the road. And if they consider that he or she is proficient enough they
will teach them to ride to school, by plotting the best route, showing
how to ride it safely as possible, and if necessary, accompanying them
initially.
When I told my husband that I had arranged a lesson for
our nine-year-old daughter Julia, with a view to her eventually riding
to school, he was appalled at the idea of her being taught on the road.
So I rang back and meekly suggested that perhaps Julia could do a bit of
"pavement work". I was politely but firmly told that they couldn't teach
her on the pavement as it is against the law.
And so I spent the night before the lesson dreaming of
Julia wobbling off down the A3 after a masked and cloaked cycling instructor
who was shouting "Isn't this great" While I pedalled after them, my screams
of "Stop!" and "Brake!" being drowned out by the passing juggernauts.
However, my fears were quite ill-founded. Our instructor
was a friendly, fresh-faced woman called Vicky Carnegy. She immediately
put my mind at rest by suggesting that as I was rather nervous of Julia
being on the road, the best idea would be to go through some basic manoeuvres
with Julia and myself on the road an thus teach me to ride protectively
of Julia.
She then got down to the business of checking our bikes
to make sure they were roadworthy. If there had been a serious problem
Vicky could have refused to give the lesson. She checked Julia's brakes,
pumped up her tyres to rock -hardness as spongy tyres apparently encourage
skidding, and produced a natty bag of tools to raise Julia's seat.
Now I had always favoured the Groucho Marx way Julia
used to ride her bike, with her knees rather near her chin, on the basis
that if she forgot to brake she could slam her feet down. But apparently
the proper position is with the rider seated, only just being able to touch
the ground.
Finally, Vicky took great care to fit Julia with a cycle
helmet, as an ill-fitting one can do more harm than good.
After a quick look at my recently serviced bike, we were
ready to begin. And immediately I made my first mistake. I had assumed
that to ride protectively of Julia I had to ride in front of her, but no
, my jobs was to shield her from the cars she could not easily see behind
her. So after changing positions we repeated the procedure of placing our
bikes about a metre from the side of the road.
We then mounted up, looked over our right shoulders and
indicated before riding off. At the beginning of each exercise Vicky asked
Julia where the dangers were, because she wanted Julia to begin to think
like a road user. She gave her lots of encouragement and never raised her
voice. From my point of view it was excellent to have someone else reinforcing
the dangers of the road but ion a positive way.
Even when Julia took it upon herself to do a U-turn without
bothering to look or indicate (luckily there wasn't anything coming), Vicky
calmly explained why this was not a good idea. Whereas I would have got
dreadfully cross, which would undoubetedly led to a sharply curtailed ride..
By the end of the one-hour lesson I felt much more confident
about Julia being on the road with me, and us riding as a pair. While Vicky's
assessment of Julia was completely in Tandem with mine, she felt Julia
had coped pretty well. But she thought that she needed to practise the
basic skills of controlling her bike when signalling or looking behind
her in the park, before venturing back on the road. …
And so, while I know that Julia's school is a mere bike
ride away, in terms of proximity, I also know what a long way we have to
go before she can actually cycle it.
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