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news
School sign.jpgCycling UK urges: “Stop making cycling to school difficult”
Cycling UK is urging schools not to make it difficult to get there by bike, with examples including require them to wear helmets and high-visibility clothing.
In recent weeks on road.cc we have reported on several schools, each with academy status, that have introduced rules for students who travel there by bike.
But the charity says that not only are some schools infringing on issues as that should be the responsibility of parents, they are also discouraging pupils from active travel at a time when child obesity is an increasing problem.
It highlighted the example of David McKeegan, whose son attends Finham Park academy in Coventry, who said: “As a responsible parent, I did my research and decided to allow my son to ride without a helmet.
“Now that Finham has overruled my decision by making helmets compulsory, my son no longer cycles to school.”
He added: “I just wish they had done their research first. There are more effective ways to improve road safety.”
The charity is worried that regulations issued by schools to those wanting to get there by bike could seriously impact the number who choose to so, with a consequent detrimental effect on children’s health, and it has published a guide showing schools how to become more cycle-friendly.
It recently held a poll on Twitter, in which 87 per cent of the 931 respondents said schools should do more to make the roads around them safer. 11 per cent called for easier availability of cycle training and just 2 per cent said helmets and hi-vis should be compulsory
Cycling UK says schools need to more to tackle the danger faced by students who choose to get there on foot or by bike, including lobbying councils to address issues such as speeding, parking and road design close to schools.
Duncan Dollimore, its head of campaigns and advocacy, said: “Active pupils are frequently healthier and more attentive students, which is why Cycling UK wants schools to stop making cycling to school difficult, and make active journeys easier and more attractive.
“Worryingly, we’re seeing head teachers trespassing on parental responsibilities.
“Our recent Twitter survey showed people felt safer local roads should be the greatest priority for schools.”
He added: “Head teachers have a powerful voice in their community which they should use to encourage their local authorities to adopt 20mph speed limits and traffic calming measures on the streets their pupils are most likely to cycle on.”
As we reported at the weekend, the headmaster of a private school in Cambridge has said that pupils who do not wear helmets while cycling face detention.
> School brings in detentions for children who don't wear a cycle helmet
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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26 comments
Yeah that's what's important here.
To be fair, if they were as twattish about literacy as the aforementioned headmasters were about cycling then you wouldn't be able to read it!
Schools may take what Cycling UK seriously if Cycling UK actually proof read what they release. Their briefing is full of errors.
If their brief is so full of errors, you'll be able to post a few, say half a dozen, just to prove your point.
Mission creep like this should be rebuffed at every opportunity, as Mr McKeegan is trying to do. Yet so many parents seem happy to devolve their responsibilities to teachers, and especially mouthy ones such as headteachers Alan Gray and Keith Batchelor because it means they can give up and blame someone else, never mind the long term impact on their children's health. As others have said, the schools would be better employed establishing what really makes cycling safer for schoolchildren and using their influence to tackle the issue of local roads with councils and law enforcement, in order to make them safer for active transport.
'Charitty'? 'Charidee' surely me ole mate...
I expect children will turn up at school in hi-vis and then be sent home for not wearing their school uniform . . . . .
school uniforms are hi-viz these days, and at boarding schools they're even issued with hi-viz pyjamas.
Charming.
Well you are on the internet, wondering about something that could be answered not very far from here (or even elsewhere), on the internet.
Your point about the reasoning being simpler than that... Does that not give you cause for concern? That a headmaster - ie. the head teacher in a school - 1. jumps to an obvious or incorrect or illogical conclusion, and 2. that's all it takes for them to rule on how their pupils travel to school? What sort of little Hitler would it take to attract your ire?
It's perfectly ok for you, me, anyone here to jump to a daft or ill-considered conclusion here. I wouldn't do the same in my job. And I doubly wouldn't in any scenario where I actually had influence in a community or over kids.
I suspect its not that complicated. They think, arguably misguidedly, that imposing a helmet rule will make children safer. A school cannot be critised for thinking of childrens' safety, even if the method is wrong.
For my children at least, telling them to wear a helmet or not makes no difference to whether or not they will cycle, kids tend to just get on with it.
I would be interested to know if the introduction of compulsory helmet use was solely responsible for reduced cycling numbers or whether there are other factors at play such as a general anti cycling rhetoric or poor infrastructure.
Like the esteemed headteachers under discussion, I cordially invite you to do some fucking research.
We can only judge the headmaster by his actions, not his intentions.
If he decided to check on the prostate health of all boys under his charge, would you be onboard with that? After all, he'd be thinking of their safety, wouldn't he? No matter that he's not trained in the relevant field and that it's way beyond his remit.
As already mentioned, requiring helmets DOES drastically reduce the number of cyclists, regardless of your anecdote about kids.
and though its not always mentioned teachers are authority figures in kids eyes, so it extends way beyond their own personal cycling experience and will have a big impact on how these kids will view cyclists as a whole on the road as it reinforces to them theres something unsafe about riding without a helmet or hi-viz, and these kids are going to grow up into the next generation of motorists believing that.
Probably the former.
Kids in my area to bikeability in primary school. So motorists are a custom to seeing cyclists of ages 8+ on the road, and the secondary school heads know kids who come from the area will have had this training so don't talk anti-cycling rubbish. Our current and planned cycling infrastructure is not near any of the secondary schools and while there is a school in a neighbouring borough kids can cycle through a park to get to, most of the kids cycle on normal roads including main roads with buses.
Incidentally all the kids and adults I saw on bikes this morning had helmets on but it was raining heavily. Normally 50% of both age groups don't bother and the kids are in uniform. The kids had lights and high viz stuff on. Normally the kids don't bother with high viz but I suspect due to it being waterproof that's why they were using it.
Yes it can. I'd go so far as to say it SHOULD be criticised if the method is wrong.
What method? I can see a policy but not a method. If the method is wrong, then the likelihood of the outcome being correct is slim.
If safety is the concern, then why are we not reading about a policy for pedestrians to wear hi-viz, not use headphones when crossing the road, ensuring they use pedestrian crossings?
Yes it can, and I don't see how you can argue otherwise. The road to hell... and all that.
People are often deluded about their own motivations, but what they choose to actually _do_ is usually a better indicator of those motivations than what they say they are, or even believe they are. Motivations are always embedded in a whole system of belief or set of assumptions, after all.
Edit - to be absolutely honest, my own motivations here are probably influenced by the fact I'm just prejudiced against headmasters, since the ones I had as a child were generally clueless!
https://youtu.be/03JXTuFGYWE
@PRSboy - you think that our "ire" is misguided by focussing on the headmaster that is making these rules. Who do you think we should be directing our anger against? Is he some puppet and there's a shadowy figure in the background just pulling his strings? Was this a decision made by others and he's just helplessly enforcing it?
Alternatively, he's drastically overstepping his bounds and deliberately harming the very children under his charge.
I think that is very deserving of our anger.
Its beyond me, how this is a decission a headteacher or school makes? Anything that encourages kids to cycle and parents to not drop off their children by car must be a good thing.
Why is it so special in the UK? In other countries there isn't even such term as "school run". Kids cycle to school, walk or take a bus if its really far. Thats it!
The first two involve the school having to do some work and actually make an attempt at making cycling to school safer. The last one involves the appearance of doing something, whereas all they're doing is foisting it off on to parents and actually doing bugger all other than doing their level best to reduce the number of kids using active travel to get to school.
These academy heads are to a well-rounded education what Jeffrey Dahmer was to fine dining.
I think the ire focussed on the headteachers is misguided... I like to think they do have the best interests of their little charges at heart and are trying to do the right thing. At least they are highlighting the issue of safety and facilitating a debate.
But why do schools not add to the same letters paragraphs reminding drivers of their legal responsibilities to drive considerately around cyclists?
This would make the safety campaign a little less one sided, and more relevant given that the majority of cycle accidents are the fault of a vehicle, as far as I can see.
Misguided ire? I could understand it more if the headteachers were also campaigning against having polluting vehicles picking up/dropping off kids, but no, they don't. Air pollution is measurable and definitely causes damage - this is not in doubt. Helmets - might protect or might encourage risky behaviour - people argue about this and it's not clear-cut one way or the other.
Any headteacher who cares about the kids would be encouraging them to get more exercise and not be driven to and from school.
This seems so obvious to me - why are so many people blind to the insidious dangers of keeping kids in polluting metal boxes?
Enforcing helmet wearing leads to fewer cyclists. This is what the best quality evidence strongly suggests.
So the headteachers that are overreaching and mandating helmets are either
A) oblivious to this evidence, and therefore impose rules based on ideology rather than objectivity and research, or
B) have done the research, have concluded that there will be a decrease in kids cycling to school, and are imposing the rule anyway, so the conclusion here has to be that they want fewer kids to cycle to school.
Which scenario do you not deem worthy of ire?
This is just a microcosm of our society, with most people demanding more rules for cyclists, usually with no basis in fact, without examining what really makes cycling safer. We can only hope that the government review of cycling safety and laws will be fact based, but experience warns me not to be confident about that e.g. when CUK had to explain to the minister for transport that having a rule in the Highway Code forcing cyclists to use all cycle facilities where they existed was not a good idea, as the vast majority of such facilities are not fit for purpose and certainly don't improve safety.
It would appear that most head teachers are blissfully ignorant of anything about road safety, but nevertheless impose their opinions on their pupils, a very sad state of affairs. I hope more parents take these head teachers to task and educate them.