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news
tfl child and parent cycling to school - via tflCouncil blasted for cycle to school ‘contract’ for children
Cheshire East Council has come in for criticism after a local cyclist posted online a portion of the authority’s School Travel Plan, encouraging schoolchildren to sign a contract “indicating that they will follow certain rules when they cycle”.
The council’s School Travel Plan, which appears to have been updated in 2021, sets out the measures and initiatives to be undertaken by schools in the area to reduce car journeys and promote other more sustainable ways for children to travel to school safely.
The plan includes a commitment from the council to introduce safer routes to school, through footpath and cycleway improvements, a sustainable travel award scheme for schools, and a range of initiatives designed to promote active travel.
Cheshire East Cycle Permit Scheme - very oddhttps://t.co/4tM01dK2Gb pic.twitter.com/fcMyzfoRE6
— Richard Newstead (@lkchdschh) September 16, 2022
However, one of these measures – the ‘cycle permit scheme’ – has been criticised online for appearing to shift the responsibility for safety on the commute to school onto children riding their bikes.
According to the council, the cycle permit scheme “encourages children to keep safe when they cycle to school, by getting children to sign a ‘contract’ indicating that they will follow certain rules when they cycle.
“Schools may print copies of the cycle permit and accompanying documents (teachers’ notes and letters to parents), or they can design their own.”
One Twitter user has claimed that the council’s cycle permit had been recently introduced by a local school, and required children who signed it to wear helmets and ride single file.
> Chris Boardman questions school’s authority to enforce cycling ban
The ‘contract’ has been ridiculed by other active travel advocates who denounced it as a “terrible idea” and instead argued that children “deserve our support and encouragement to travel independently to school”.
One user wrote that the council was “’encouraging pupils to cycle’ by transferring responsibility for the consequences of poor provision; meanwhile car drivers ‘carry on as usual’.”
Another asked whether Cheshire East Council would be “getting all the parents who drive their kids to school to sign contracts too?”
Big bag of nope @CheshireEast. This is creating barriers, not enabling active travel, not actually helping with safety, not sending the right message to parents. 🤦♂️ https://t.co/MyRi0FUWzZ
— Sam Easterby-Smith (@samsterby) September 17, 2022
The council’s Cycling and Walking champion Suzie Akers Smith replied to the initial post, saying that she “wasn’t aware such a thing existed” and that she will “look into it”.
“There should be similar options for cycling to school as there are for walking to school,” she said.
Speaking to road.cc, Akers Smith said: “I was pretty shocked at the wording of the cycle permit scheme and surprised there was such a scheme.
“I believe the statement about cycling should include similar options to walking and what is written is historic content, possibly years ago before the introduction of the cycling and walking champion. I would be very surprised if Cheshire East Council would create such a statement with the political will we presently have with the Labour/Independent administration.”
She continued: “I have asked for clarification and will be looking for what is currently written to be amended and the content to reflect the present values of what CEC are trying to achieve to support people walking and cycling.
“What is written will do nothing to support children trying to be more active and will not increase the uptake of cycling to school. In one Congleton secondary academy they have space for 240 bikes but only 12 children cycle each day. We are trying to increase this to 50 at least.
“[The council’s] leadership support everything I am trying to do to improve the uptake of walking and cycling and would be equally as surprised as I was to read these cycle permit rules.
“I will be recommending changes that reflect of the Council and to bring this content up to date.”
> South London school bans knives, guns, drugs and… bicycles
Earlier this week, Cycling UK’s campaigns and policy manager Jim Densham published an article on the charity’s website highlighting the different ways, such as bike buses and political pressure, in which we can ensure our children can travel to school safely by bike.
“All children should be able to ride a bike to school and be safe – no question – and people are starting to show this is what they want for children in their community,” Densham wrote.
“Your local councillors are the ones who have the power to make streets around schools and along routes to school safe for children to walk and cycle. They’re the ones who spend the money and make the decisions about which projects go ahead.
“It’s time to speak up for the next generation. It’s time to tell decision-makers that our children need safe space on the roads so they can have the freedom to cycle to school.”
In 2019, Cycling UK responded to a similar bid to place the onus for road safety on children cycling to school – on that occasion, a personal injury lawyer argued that Bikeability safety training should be mandatory (a stance shared by cycling advocates, but for strikingly different reasons) – by claiming that it was looking at the issue “through the wrong end of the telescope”.
Duncan Dollimore, Cycling UK’s head of campaigns, told road.cc at the time: “Giving children the confidence and skills to cycle has huge benefits for their long-term health and wellbeing, so Cycling UK welcomes [law firm] Prettys’ contribution to cycle training debate.
“But despite their best intentions, we’d take issue with the suggestion that it’s needed because it’s their responsibility to ensure they’ve taken sufficient steps to protect themselves from accidents and injuries.
“Vulnerable road users aren’t vulnerable because they decide to walk or cycle, they’re vulnerable due to the risks presented by the drivers of larger vehicles,” he continued.
"The road safety conversation should therefore start with the question of how that risk is reduced, not what the vulnerable road user should do to protect themselves, which is just looking through the wrong end of the telescope.”
> School that confiscates bikes if helmets aren't worn claims more children are now riding to school
In 2018, a school in Nottingham banned pupils from cycling until they had successfully completed Bikeability training, due to what the head teacher in question described as “a growing number of students cycling to and from school in an extremely dangerous way”.
The move, which was publicly criticised by Chris Boardman (who also questioned whether the school had applied the same restrictions to driving), came after after a Surrey school told its students they could only cycle to school if they fitted a number plate to their bikes in November 2017.
In the same month, a school in St Albans also said it would suspend children caught riding to school on the pavement or without a helmet.
After obtaining a PhD, lecturing, and hosting a history podcast at Queen’s University Belfast, Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
Latest Comments
- HeadDown 3 sec ago
Isn't it the law to report a road traffic accident, and not leave the scene? Eh? Irrespective of anyone affected reporting anything.
- Silversurfmonkey 12 min 10 sec ago
Improves safety? How? By ensuring you grind your face off on the tarmac instead of your arse?
- Hirsute 19 min 57 sec ago
"Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroys much good."
- Jaijai 44 min 46 sec ago
His life was only worth shy of 7 years ,that's too lenient in every book .Let alone drugged up and leaving him to die
- webbierwrex 49 min 43 sec ago
I came here to basically write the same thing, the floating bus stop near me has a very narrow cycling lane between a very narrow pavement and a...
- AS52 1 hour 12 min ago
It wasn't an official consultation meeting - see my comment above.
- GMBasix 1 hour 46 min ago
Right, well that could be handy: I'm going round with my baseball bat to have a quiet chat about ownership. You can use their names to see if they...
- Steve K 1 hour 48 min ago
Years ago, friends and I drove in two cars to a church for a wedding rehearsal. As we drove down the drive, we passed a "CHILDREN - DRIVE SLOWLY"...
- Nagai74 1 hour 56 min ago
I can only speak about my frame.
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32 comments
These contracts can't override a person's legal rights or the highway code. They're just asking to be sued and forced to defend themselves online.
I read the year old article from link above on South London school banning bikes. Hadn't seen that before. Can anyone give an update on whether the ban on pupils cycling still exists or was progress made?
Doesn't look like it, just had a look on the school website and the below is still in the behaviour policy. Utter madness, not only is the school on a big site with ample room for bike sheds but it's on West Hill in Putney with totally segregated two-way cycle lanes - I use them when going that way to Richmond Park - that link easily with a number of other safe routes.
The only way to tackle the epidemic of smoking, drinking, racism, pornography, fireworks, knives, lasers, guns and drugs is to ban bikes.
Well bikes are a gateway drug to everything. It's not just that bikes can lead you to the drugs and other contraband - a bike could even bring it to you!
I was about to propose campaigning for harm minimisation - more bicycle-based dealing as opposed to motor vehicle-based dealing. Then I realised it's a case of "where electric motorcycles / unlicenced scooters are outlawed, outlaws will have electric motorcycles / scooters".
Nonsense - I spend so much on bikes and gear I couldn't possibly afford drugs or weapons!
My kids have to pass Bikeability to ride to school without a parent and there are no courses to go on 🤷🏻♀️
I don't understand how that can be enforced. I thought that schools have no power once the kid is not on school grounds. If they are accepting some responsibility for the horrendous number of collisions that happen with parents driving irresponsibly around schools, then I can foresee some lawsuits.
DfE guidance actually gives schools considerable power to enforce school rules on pupils in a variety of external scenarios, such as when travelling to and from school, when wearing school uniform etc. If it's in the school rules that they can't ride to school without Bikeability, kids doing so can be punished. Not saying that's right but the mechanism is definitely there.
That would appear to allow schools to similarly punish children if they are being dropped off in a car that's not following their rules as well e.g. parking on zig-zag lines; speeding. Does it also mean that schools can be held responsible for injuries that happen to schoolkids whilst travelling?
I don't think it would as that would be the driver's responsibility, children can only be sanctioned for acts directly under their control, not what parents/carers have made them do. In terms of responsibility for injury I'd think it doubtful though possible if the school had done something to contribute to it, e.g. allowed a child with a known head injury from a rugby game to cycle home alone.
I do remember when I was at school, some time back in the Victorian era, in winter kids with detentions had the option to take them at lunchtime so they could still ride home in the light, but I doubt a school would be culpable if they did keep a child until rush hour/darkness (with sufficient notice), they could presumably just say parents/carers should make alternative arrangements.
There is a big In Loco Parentis issue here - legally, and under OFSTED (school inspectors) safeguarding rules, schools have an obligation towards children on their journeys to and from school. Hence why at primary school, there are strict rules on when children are allowed to travel to and from school unaccompanied, etc. So the school is obliged to consider the safety of children beyond the school gates.
In any case, what is going on here is the typical blind spots and biases, whereby it is up to cyclists (of any age) to avoid being killed, rather than the obligation of other people to ensure they drive appropriately.
School gates are the absolute worst places in the world for driving standards and bonkers senses of entitlement
Back in the 90s when I was at school a teacher found out I was regularly riding the 12 miles each way to and from School instead of taking the school bus, they tried to get me to stop on the basis I had never taken my cycling proficiency. I didn't stop. Later they had no idea that once I turned 16 my very cool PE teacher was letting me dodge regular PE on Wednesday afternoons to go riding in the local mountains or join a local afternoon club ride! If caught it was agreed he had no idea where I had been. I wonder if any teachers would even try to get away with that now?
Show off!
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How can this possibly be?
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A lay bah council, a layyy bah council.
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Cheshire East LAB+IND 82 30 25 4 23
What you need to do is read the actual story:
TLDR: "Looks like someone has accidentally retained old content [probably from when the council was Conservative up to 2019] which doesn't reflect our values, we'll be looking to fix this ASAP."
In one Congleton secondary academy they have space for 240 bikes but only 12 children cycle each day. We are trying to increase this to 50 at least.
that's a very pessimistic yet honest assessment. Even to reach 50 will probably take years and years of sustained initiatives. Very few parents will allow their children to cycle to school - because they (we) don't think the roads are safe for children.
If you'd seen the amount of road building around Congleton then you'd be pessimistic... On the one hand, there's a shed load of bypasses that "should" reduce town traffic; on the other hand there's more roads to fill with vehicles trying to travel at 60 plus mph everywhere!
Some of my old cycling routes, I wouldn't have a clue how to find those roads anymore
Another asked whether Cheshire East Council would be “getting all the parents who drive their kids to school to sign contracts too?”
Yes! The drivers could sign a contract stating that they would not not pass traffic lights at red, or fail to arrange valid MOT, insurance or VED for the vehicle- or are these optional in Cheshire as well?
Because we are cyclists, we have a different view of the world and road safety, than do drivers, and they literally cannot understand that they are the cause of the problem, not the cyclist. The new HC made some progress on this, but clearly much more work is needed before all drivers comprehend that THEY are the problem, not the people they threaten and kill.
How about a DfT advertising campaign, like the THINK ones they had a few years ago, with frightening graphics of skulls and cycle helmets, furiously implying that it was the cyclists' fault that they were being killed? Not sure how it would work, but how about a driver contemplating their own death after they'd killed a kid?
On a completely unrelated subject, I'm seriously considering writing to the Archbishop of Canterbury, or possibly the Pope, to request the canonisation of Duncan Dollimore, to raise him to the same status as St Christopher of Boardman, if only for this comment:
"“Vulnerable road users aren’t vulnerable because they decide to walk or cycle, they’re vulnerable due to the risks presented by the drivers of larger vehicles,”
Parents promising not to park in a manner that endangers other children.
It's not the parking, it's stuff like driving down pavements by the school because of congestion. The amount of road rage at schools has to be seen to be believed.
There are local schools that have spent a fortune on drop off areas to resolve traffic problems, others have to have volunteer marshals to manage traffic.
What's interesting locally was the traffic wasn't a problem 15 years ago, whereas now the volume at primary schools especially is a major issue. I believe it is in part policies that removed catchment areas so many more children have to travel longer distances due to parental choice (which has knock on effects like more leisure travelling ferrying kids to friends) as well as work pressures, though round here it seems to be the Pilates pressure - got to use a car to get to the exercise class on time.
No catchment areas? Catch up.
It is...
And as for catchment areas, not entirely true. I don't drive so never mad the ridiculous choice that many do... "I drive my kids because of all the cars, it's too dangerous to walk..." Genius!
When my son was at school the other parents always parked on the yellow zig zags. They even parked right in front of the shop opposite blocking the pavement and the pelican crossing the kids coming out of the shop used to cross the road. These were the same parents who would ask me if I thought it was safe to cycle with him to school. The head teacher gave up asking politely and had to get the local police to attend at the start and finish of the school day.
One answer to that is "It would be much safer if you lot weren't so selfish."
Perhaps if they tried cycling or walking with their kids they might understand where the blame lies.
Like most towns, the schools in Shrewsbury have a perennial problem with dangerous and illegal or plain selfish parking by parents in cars. There have been some frightening incidents on an estate road near 2 secondary schools and a primary (where the 30mph limit is ignored by many drivers) but the council are dragging their feet as usual.
As for the idea of a ‘contract’, it's laughably dumb focus by the council. They claim they want to "reduce car journeys and promote other more sustainable ways for children to travel to school safely" yet all they actually do is put the responsibility for road safety on little children. Victim-blaming at its finest and NOT the way to encourage more active travel. The council transport team should be visiting schools themselves and working out what needs to be done - it's their job!
Like most towns, the schools in Shrewsbury have a perennial problem with dangerous and illegal or plain selfish parking by parents in cars
Likewise leafy Garstang- long ranks of large cars sit on both sides of the congested road as close as possible to Garstang Community Academy from before 3pm. Many have their engines running continually even in summer, and it's likely to be most of them once again this winter. It's also a haven for the 'No MOT or insurance and we don't care' brigade, like KT18 ZFC, here on the pavement directly opposite the school waiting for offspring- reported twice to Lancashire Constabulary (no response, of course) and seen regularly around Garstang- still no MOT (time on the GoPro is GPS GMT)
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I've nearly finished reading a book called Movement, which makes this exact point.
https://scribepublications.co.uk/books-authors/books/movement-9781911344971
Thanks, I'll add that to my reading list.
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