Robert C

As many of you know, I am a middle school teacher. As such, when bike to school day comes around, I get volunteered to be a “guide.”

There are two reasons that I dislike bike to school day. Firstly, I dislike the idea that biking to school should be an event that requires guides, support vehicles, and police *******. It reinforces the idea that cycling is little but an impractical, dangerous, stunt. Biking to school should just be something that students do; no fanfare, just do.

The second reason, and is nothing but personal preference; a preference for doing things right, is that I dislike how the students are trained to ride. The students are told to ride, facing traffic, on the sidewalks, and in the gutter if no sidewalk is available. This is stated, and reinforced by the school police, who conduct the bicycle safety training.

In all, I am no big fan of “bike to school day.”

mcours2006

I feel the same way about walk-to-school day. If you can walk to school one day, why can't you do it the other days?

BikeSnobNY has a funny piece on this:

https://www.outsideonline.com/2265156/baby-board

I-Like-To-Bike

Who or what are "school police"? Are they real policeman from the city where your school is located, school employees, or self appointed do-gooders? Where do they conduct this backassward bicycle safety training, do they "state" their unsafe ideas on school property during school hours and with your school administration's blessings?

Robert C

They are sworn police officers who are employed by the district. They use a standardized curriculum. It is written and is part of a mandatory district program. So, no, it isn't just one ignorant guy, it is policy.

I-Like-To-Bike

Does the standardized curriculum really state that bicyclists should be told to ride on the road or street, facing traffic? Doesn't that conflict with the state traffic laws that address bicycle riding? What age or grade students are required to take this mandatory training? Sounds like a very unusual and unsafe outlier in current bicycle training programs and is ripe for being corrected or eliminated for the benefit of the students involved.

Robert C

I tried addressing this. now, Imagine you are the district police officer; put your thumbs through your gun belt, puff out your chest, now say," We see you riding and I know you mean well. But you have to understand, we need to think of the safety of the students." responding that the method they are advocating is placing the students in danger will just be met with more condensing behaviour. . . Trust me, I tried.

The main problem, as I see it is that the mandatory bicycle safety class is in the fifth grade, then it is not revisited. Advise that may make sense for a little kid, creaking along with a teacher walking along side (like I saw today when we went by the elementary school group, yes, with a police escort) is not appropriate for middle and high school students. Yet, the police, in today's case, the city police, are reminding the students to ride the way the safety officer taught them.

My students are frequently asking me why I ride "wrong." I treat those questions as learning moments and show them the state laws. I am careful to stick to the state laws as i discuss riding so that I can not be accused of anything. I even have a stack of pamphlets printed by the state highway department that address safe cycling. I use those in the explanation. Yes, the state pamphlets say whet you expect them to say.

mr_bill

Statewide ‘Bicycle Education and Safety Training’ course rolls through Washington County elementary schools

They don't seem to be on the sidewalk or the gutter, and they *seem* to be riding on the right side of the road.

-mr. bill

Milton Keynes

LBS here has done some bike safety presentations at school recently, and they made a point to tell students to ride with traffic, not against it. Your school board needs to know that the bike "safety" curriculum is teaching students to ride dangerously. If I were you I'd let them know, but I can understand if you don't want to make waves.

CliffordK

Hmmm..

You mean all those days I rode my bicycle to school... since gradeschool... I was wrong? I should have waited for that one bike to school holiday?

I think around here, they have something where school buses only run 1+ mile from school. Kids living closer than 1 mile from school are expected to walk or ride a bike.

Of course, for some of them, parents drive them to school.

Perhaps what one needs are bus holidays. Pick a few sunny spring and fall days, and have a revised bus route that the minimum distance to school for riding the bus increases to say 5 miles.

Dchiefransom

If the training the kids are given deviates from state law, I would think that could make the district liable in the event of an injury or death.

CB HI

https://www.hbl.org/bikeed/

ExPatTyke

Absolutely spot on. My kids ride their bikes to school / college every day, rain or shine. Pretty much every single newsletter from the school includes a request for parents to park more considerately outside school & there's never a suggestion that letting the children walk or cycle will improve the traffic outside the school and make the children healthier.

jimincalif

Wow, what a mess.

I rode my bike to middle school and first two years of high school, on regular roads, in the same direction as traffic, back in the 70s. Fortunately we didn't have any school police to tell me I was doing it wrong. We didn't have special bike days either. It was very simple. I walked to grade school, my middle school was too far to walk. I had a bike, so I didn't expect my parents to chauffeur me to school, and they certainly didn't expect to either.

They gave me a Schwinn Varsity for Christmas in the sixth grade, I'm sure they were planning ahead for my 7th grade transportation!

Oneder

In california as a boy I got a ticket for riding on the sidewalk in the direction of traffic, but the officier told me you can ride on the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street.

I rode to school on the bike all the time, never saw much advantage either way except the sidewalk is a bt more safe (jerks in Huntington Beach simply don't stop or slow down for ANYTHING). There was never anyone on the sidewalk so peds were not a big issue. When I did legally ride on the sidewalk going the 'wrong way' I constantly got idiots shouting out of the car I was going the wrong way.

Here in nevada you can go on the sidewalk in either direction and there are not many bike lanes. I was going with traffic on the sidewalk on desert inn and this annoying chick is coming the other direction and giving me the evil eye as if I am doing something wrong being on the sidewalk in spite of there being no bike lane and it being a suicidally busy street to ride on. Maybe she is from california and thinks that is what the law is in nevada (I CONSTANTLY have idiots try to tell me it's illegal to have my dogs in the car here when it is 70 degrees out, when it absolutely is not - if I ever rage out and shoot someone in the face it will be one of these people). Regardless of bike lanes or the local law I am not going up sahara in the bike lane let alone DI WITHOUT a bike lane where everyone is going 60 mph, that is just suicide.

So you have to deal with the local law and local stupid people wherever you go but being safe is the most important thing, and that comes from being careful and using your brain more than anything else. So hopefully they are ramming home the idea of looking both ways when you cross the street and only crossing at crosswalks. Things like that are the most important when it comes to safety.

prathmann

In most areas children are allowed to ride on the sidewalk and legally it makes no difference in which direction. But the only fatality that I know of in our neighborhood was of an elementary school child riding his bike home on the sidewalk in the direction facing traffic. When he came to an intersection with another residential street he was partially hidden by bushes and the driver of a school bus probably looked more closely in the direction of traffic before pulling out and unfortunately running over the boy. I ride past the spot frequently and am reminded when I see the now closely cropped bushes that previously restricted visibility.

Even on sidewalks there's a safety issue associated with riding 'against traffic'. Especially in areas with few pedestrians, vehicle drivers tend to look more carefully in the direction from which vehicular traffic would be coming before pulling out from intersections or into/out of driveways.

Oneder

I guess that is possible but you have to assume they are not looking and won't see you. One time when school was letting out I crossed in front of the exit of the school I went to on the way to the library, first stopping to let one lady go. As soon as I get directly in front of the next lady picking up her kid she guns it and I go right under her station wagon. Thankfully, she stopped quickly enough that I did not get turned into chum and was OK, but how she managed to not see me when I had been stopped right there for like a minute waiting for the car in front of her to go, I can't even imagine. I was in the bike lane going with traffic btw.

Unfortunately kids don't have the best judgement, and they are also small. Which is why I would not let them ride to school until they are at least in 5th grade.

Maelochs

Either get serious about fighting the illegal and unsafe training, or refuse to participate.

I would never teach any unsafe or illegal practice to a group of children which I would only be teaching for one day, so that i wouldn't have time to explain that it was both illegal and unsafe.

Whatever you do is fine with me, of course ... your life, your choices .... but .... whatever.

rumrunn6

Milton Keynes

I agree totally, and I can't understand sworn officers of the law teaching children to violate state law.

Rollfast

On the other hand, I was always blocks from my schools and one day after school I found my stolen bike unlocked in the racks and rode it home

Chris0516

I would agree with you 100%. Just that, kids who participate in BTSD would be at greater risk for injury. If they weren't monitored.

Now, Juxtaposing the second part of my response, against the first part.

I vehemently agree with you about how kids' are trained to ride!!!! I am dumbfounded. When I see someone riding against the traffic.

travelinhobo

Well, the fact of the matter is that bikes will never be taken seriously or respected. In the U.S. they're still viewed as a toy for kids or transport for the poor. Any entity that has a holiday will never be taken seriously. That's why we have Black History month, bike to work week, etc. (Could you imagine a White Man's History month??). As for teaching kids/adults wrong, it's 2018 - there's no excuse for that. Goes back to bikes not being taken seriously. Don't know what state you're in, but I would suggest getting in touch with your state's bike coalition. See what suggestions they come up with and what they can do. Are there any bike orgs in the area who could get in touch with the school system to give classes? Etc.

laurenholloway

I can't blame you cause that is also your personal preferences, but I guess cycling in school is not that bad "if only" they are well trained and aware what are the do's and don'ts in cycling.

no motor?

I used to be involved with a couple of bicycle advocacy groups who organized rides like that in order to show people how easy it was to ride places. And they never had an answer to the question of what people would do the rest of the year when the ******* and other staff weren't around.

Daniel4

During two of Toronto's bike events (bike to work day and coldest ride of the year) there are police ******* on bikes. So the car traffic is well behaved. I wish those police ******* would be in plain clothes so they could actually nab the road ragers.

So for schools to encourage year-round participation, it would be nice for the local police to be on bicycles instead of cruisers riding around their neighbourhoods. They'd probably find the worst offensers are parents dropping their kids off in cars, vans, and SUVs.