sggoodri

This PSA stars elementary school students from Cary, NC to promote better, safer bicycling habits. While not intended to be comprehensive, it sets a better example for predictable behavior to deter the most common causes of child bicycling collisions.

If you like this video, please vote for their cause here.

https://vimeo.com/128786040
Story: Elementary Students Promote Safer Bicycling Habits in Video

CrankyOne

Some good stuff however I'd quite strongly disagree with making a blanket statement to not ride on sidewalks.

On the residential street in the video riding on the road instead of the sidewalk is likely best however many times it is much safer, especially for children, to ride on a sidewalk rather than with the 50 mph traffic on the adjacent road. There are also instances of sidewalks as MUPs or MUPs as sidewalks and it can be difficult for local traffic engineers to tell the difference so how can we expect children to know if something is a bikeway or sidewalk?

The sidewalk below sees about 50 kids per day riding to some places up ahead. The speed limit on the road is 45 mph with 50-60 mph not unusual. Should we tell these 50 kids that they should be taking the lane?



I'm not sure I'd want to be the producer of that video when some kid is paralyzed after being hit by a car on a road like the one above and when asked why he was doing that says that the video he saw in school told him to.

dynodonn 

Agree, our local police chief tried to get a city wide ban on sidewalk cycling for cyclists over the age of 16, but quickly learned that not all the city's streets and roads are conducive to be ridden by all cyclists.

sggoodri

I don't let my kids ride on corridors where they aren't ready to use the roadway. I find that the sidewalk/crosswalk conflicts are much too hazardous for them to navigate safely when roads are built for high speed and they are too young to handle the roadway. (Example, drivers roll through stop signs, around wide radius curves and across sidewalks at speed without yielding to peds and sidewalk cyclists) My older kid can handle some types of thoroughfares; the younger ones are constrained to local streets and greenways with appropriate designs. Cities should design, build and police streets between neighborhoods and local schools and parks more appropriately if children are to use them.

Steve

CrankyOne

FWIW, most experienced cyclists avoid the road I posted above and many adults (my wife and I included) will ride on the sidewalk when going to lunch or something (there are a bunch of places just about 1/4 mile from where this image is). There are no other alternative routes so the choices are; 1) Don't ride a bike but instead drive a car less than a mile, 2) Ride on the sidewalk, or 3) Ride in the traffic lane.

After years of encouraging people to ride bikes for transportation and them having started to do so, I don't want to tell them #1 . #3 would result in #1 . That leaves #2 .

Completely agree.

sggoodri

The major issues we are having with child cycling crashes in my city are (1) children riding/darting out from driveways/side streets into traffic (recent and only fatality on record involving a nine year old happened this way), (2) sidewalk cyclists, mostly contra-flow, getting hit at driveways and intersections by drivers pulling out, (3) unlighted cyclists in darkness, and (4) kids swerving across the low speed road from one side to another without looking back. The video and advice given are to address those particular crashes and the types of streets we have in our local community of students and parents.

I haven't cycled on a sidewalk in 20 years, except for a couple of short "multi use path" segments that join off-road greenways in such a way that there is no practical way to get on and off of the roadway portion for those segments. I intentionally chose to live in an area where there are a diversity of street types connecting to my destinations such that I can find roadways that I enjoy that serve my destinations, and I empathize with people who live where such street diversity and redundancy doesn't exist.

Although I am a pretty die hard lane-controlling road cyclist/commuter, using 45 mph roads as part of my commute, I am a strong proponent of designing local street networks to support low speed short trips, redundant to the longer distance higher speed highways, and also greenway and short cut path connectors. The project that the school PTA is championing is a path connector from the school student entrance directly to a nearby neighborhood greenway. I worked with NCSU engineering students to come up with a path design that would meet ADA, be easy to ride on, and meet with the school system's approval. We just need money to build it, which would come with the grant if we win it. Any votes for the project are greatly appreciated. https://tinyurl.com/rampvote

CB HI

The kids did a great job. Ignore the naysayers. I do not intend to open a face book account, so is there any other method to vote for it?

sggoodri

I have plenty of friends who, like you, don't use Facebook. Unfortunately, voting is only enabled for Facebook users. Thanks for your interest, though, and if you know any Facebook users who would be interested in the video, please consider emailing them the link.

atbman

These are primary school kids and the likelihood that any of their parents would suggest/let them ride on the kind of relatively high-speed road in the photo is as close to zero as can be. The local streets shown are those which would be used by youngsters of the age shown and there is little reason why they shoudl not ride on them - either to school of to visit friends.

Broadly speaking, they're using the same roadcraft taught in the UK's national Bikeability scheme to children age 9 - 10.

If it helps to get the grant for a link to a local traffic-free path path from those streets, more power to their elbow(s)

vol

Nice. I thought their parents were probably on these forums? One thing they should have mentioned is using mirrors.

B. Carfree

Nicely done video and good project. Those little connections can really make a positive difference.

Of course our A&S fear brigade wants to turn this into something else by choosing a poorly-designed road and pretending that sidewalk riding is less lousy than vehicular riding. I suppose we could all post the dangerous places some people ride on sidewalks (or things like the dangerous sidewalk-riding-facilitating design that led directly to our last tragic local death).

snow_echo_NY

this is great, i'll have to come back and watch

spare_wheel

I very much do believe that for young children sidewalk riding is often less lousy than vehicular riding. The fact that this is controversial is very sad.

spare_wheel

Thankfully, you are all but extinct where I live.
God bless.