Please do not shout at my bicycle

by Sierra on April 27, 2009 · Comments

in green living

Dear Concerned Citizens,

Please do not shout insults or parenting advice at me as I am biking past your car on a city street with my kids in tow. Your fear for my children’s safety is truly touching. However, if you pause for a moment, you may realize that taking your own attention away from the vehicle you are driving to startle, alarm and anger the rider of the bicycle does not make my kids safer.

In fact, were you to cause an accident with this behavior, you can be fairly sure I would not be blaming myself for the harm that befell my babies. I would blame you, and your self-righteous idiocy.

Perhaps next time, instead of screaming, “You’re going to die!” or “That is so dangerous!!!” out your car window, you might want to focus on taking special care that you’d don’t became the agent of our apparently inevitable destruction.

A very good way to do this is to get on a bike yourself. If more people tried that, my kids and I would be a lot safer on the roads.

Love,

Your friendly neighborhood cyclist

Related posts:

  1. Go play in traffic: Bicycle Safety on Busy Roads
  2. Biking with kids: what bike to choose
  3. Dangerous cycling: the controversy continues
  4. lawyer is not a nice word
  5. Car-free family, for the moment

Tagged as: bike, green, parenting

What next?

  • That is a good summation of what our doctor said as well, and the bike mechanics I talked with.
  • I asked my pediatrician about all of this (we just got a trailer). He said, "Ultimately, you're modeling good, healthy, active behavior by biking with your kids [whether in trailer or seat]." [That's an approximate quote, BTW.] He said as long as the parent is alert and bikes defensively, it should be OK.
  • Came here via Free Range Kids too. Can't believe that first comment.

    I love your letter to Concerned Citizens. People do need to learn that they don't need to criticize everyone else's parenting skills.
  • Casey
    Hahaha, when I go for a bike ride, I just leave my kids in the car. Just kidding (referring to a FRK post). I hope to ride my bike with my daughter often...just as I'd like to canoe with her, and teach her to climb cliffs (and sometimes jump off). I will make sure she feels comfortable with the risks she takes and that she knows her limits, but I hope to avoid being constantly afraid for her safety. It's scary to think about what the world could look like in even 10 years if nobody will even ride a bike. I am thankful though to live in a city with a trail for walking/biking/rollerblading...near the river. There are not many people on bikes on the roads her (in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada) and we have some of the most terrible drivers, so I like to stick to the paved trails.
  • Nicola
    Ah, people like Jane just make me wish you could zap them from the sky each time they pass judgment on others.

    I can't say I was comfortable enough to take my kids in a trailer, but I never would yell at someone for doing so with their kids. The audacity some people have just makes you wonder where THEIR parents were when they needed to be taught manners.
  • We bought our Burley D'Lite used too, and love it. My older daughter also has a trail-a-bike (which I think is the brand name as well as a good descriptor of the thing? it was a gift). She LOVES her trail-a-bike, but I prefer the trailer because the trail-a-bike throws my center of balance off. My husband, on the other hand, prefers the trail-a-bike, and will be using it to commute to school with her next year when she starts kindergarten at the lab school at his university.

    The helmet issue did come up but I skimmed those posts without really reading them. I was run over by a car in a freak accident a few years ago, one of those rare moments where having a properly fitted bike helmet on actually did save my life - the helmet cracked in half instead of my skull. I know the data on helmets is totally mixed, but after that I got religion about wearing them, and putting them on people I love - of all ages.
  • Rich Wilson
    I bought my Burley Solo used from someone who commuted 10 miles with it 5 days a week. It had a little damage on one side, and the mom said "ya, that's where they (dad and son) took a corner too fast and it went over on its side. Son thought it was a blast."

    I have no research to prove it, but I do have 35 years of biking experience. I firmly believe trailers are much safer than seats. And pretty soon I'll put him on the tag-along.

    I'm curious if the 'helmet' issue came up. My son wears his helmet in the trailer, but I consider it a habit, not a real safety thing. And nothing bugs me more than watching helmeted kids riding with helmetless parents. Whatever you think about helmets, if they're good for kids, they're good for adults. I don't think most adults are any better bike handlers than most kids. And adults have farther to fall.
  • thanks. we just got into a HUGE debate about this on my local moms list this week, which seems to have been kicked off by someone saying that she chose a bike seat for her kid because trailers seem so dangerous - I think it's a common misconception, but the (admittedly slim) available data suggests that trailers are the way to go if safety is your main concern.

    that said, of course the really key thing is to ride safely. no seat or trailer will keep your kid safe in a full-speed, direct-impact with a car. I posted more recently - here: http://childwild.com/2009/06/04/go-play-in-traf... - about safe riding practices. some interesting new information I've found since then is that as the percentage of people riding bikes in a given population goes up, the liklihood of accidents between bikes and cars goes down. So we make the streets safer for everyone when we get out there on our bikes!
  • GimliGirl
    I'm also from over at Free Range Kids and wanted to lend you some support. We have a bike trailer for Gabe as we were told it's safer for him than if he was in one of the bike seats behind my huband while he's riding. We don't take him out often but when we do we're very very careful. Driving defensively AND behaving like a vehicle on the road should seems like the best course of action.
  • I'm glad you came! The world needs more Free Range parents and kids. I can't answer your question about what other people assume, but I know there's a huge range of good parenting out there. And clearly, I think my kids are pretty awesome, so I must be doing something right.
  • Rich Wilson
    I came here via your comment on Freerange- and now I'm almost sorry I did. Now that I've read Jane's comment, I can't stop fuming. That's about the most ignorant thing I've read in a long time.

    Why is it that people are so willing to assume that other people don't love their kids and are complete morons? You know, it's just possible that the person you're criticizing over their parenting skills is actually a competent and loving parent.
  • KPod
    Never mind the riskiness or not, I doubt they are riding bicycles "just to make a point." Are you driving a car "just to make a point" that you have the means to kill people?
  • Jane
    or you could stop putting your kids in risky positions just to make a point.
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