City Cycling
Cartoon by Yehuda Moon
Dutch children come at the top of Unicef’s league table for child well-being across 21 industrialised countries.
Below them are Swedes, Danes and Finns. The UK comes last.
David Hembrow asks: “Why is it that British people put up with conditions on their roads which put their children in danger ?”
If a society puts children welfare at the centre of policy, the whole population gains: happy children are less likely to turn to asocial activities later in life.
So best wishes to Ann Kenrick, who is in process of writing a guide for families and authorities to enable more children to ride to school, see cover below.
Article posted Friday, February 20th, 2009
3 Responses to Putting children at the centre
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Nice cover!
Where will the guide “Let me out” be to have, when Ann Kenrick finished writing?
In Germany the ADFC just published a brochure „Mobil mit Kind und Rad“ (“mobil with child and bike”, only german language, pdf-download see our website. The brochure is written for families).
I'm interested in Ann Kenricks tipps to authorities.
I was road training my 7 yr old in Forest Hill SE23 on a Sunday a few weekends ago, and although he was very keen to try going up the main road, which we did for a few yards, the sight of him behind double decker buses and with cars cutting in on us tested even my nerve, and I've been cycling in London for 20 years (Elephant and castle roundabout included). We bailed, but not before I'd received head-shaking, tutting and disapproving looks from 2 separate passengers in the cars passing us. London has never been easy to cycle in, and in my experience it doesn't seem to have got a lot better in the time I've been riding. I can well believe we are at the bottom of that league table.
The book will be available from Lollypop Publishing ISBN number 978-1-906788-01-8 from early July 2009.