Cycling UK Forum

riding the camel trail today;a rather disturbing incident occured;two children unaccopanied by their parents and were riding bikes;,as i drew close the eldest,aged about 8 years, pushed her little sister on her bike into the side of mine as i passed.i swear i caught a look of glee on the eldest childs face;how she missed ploughing into my crank,and knocking me off the bike,heaven knows(perhaps heaven had a say here)
you just dont know nowadays

bally kids a good advert for contraception if ever there was one.

Assigning adult motives to 8 year olds is probably a waste of time. Why not celebrate the fact that they were being introduced to cycling by their parents and take more care around them?

Chances are, whether the elder child was pleased with her action, she had not reckoned that additional risk that your presence presented. Children that age are not good at either accumulating risks, judging speed, nor thinking through consequences.

Even parents who actually teach their children to think about consequences won't haven't gotten very far with it at that age. She was probably just taking advantage of the fact that her parents had not (yet) specifically prohibited her from pushing her sister into the path of another cyclist.

I don't like the title. It seems unnecessarily insulting.

Vorpal wrote:I don't like the title. It seems unnecessarily insulting.

A teacher would be sacked for using it that's for sure!

Vorpal wrote:I don't like the title. It seems unnecessarily insulting.

Stupid is as stupid does. And stupid did.

I am not sure that stupid is an apt word either.

It sounds more like evil to me.

Vorpal wrote:Chances are, whether the elder child was pleased with her action, she had not reckoned that additional risk that your presence presented. Children that age are not good at either accumulating risks, judging speed, nor thinking through consequences.

Even parents who actually teach their children to think about consequences won't haven't gotten very far with it at that age. She was probably just taking advantage of the fact that her parents had not (yet) specifically prohibited her from pushing her sister into the path of another cyclist.

I don't like the title. It seems unnecessarily insulting.

Quite, the eldest was probably well used to causing trouble for their younger sibling, the fact the OP was there too was irrelevant to their thinking.

The younger child will no doubt at a future date, push the older one in front of a train.

The Bodmin and Wenford is not far away. Watch the local papers?

I despair, this is an 8 year old! Some people just seem to hate anyone under 50

I would call somebody over 50 evil too.

If they tried to push their little brother/sister into an oncomming bike.

Fortunately I dont ride with my big brother or sister ever, so I am safe from them.

I'm rather surprised at the extent of anti-child feeling being expressed. Kids do silly things. They don't necessarily think about it, they just do it. If you see young unaccompanied kids you should expect potential fun/naughtiness. It could have been nasty for the rider or the child, but luckily it wasn't. Perhaps they will be more careful next time, but it's hardly the end of the world.

It's all fun and games until somebody gets hurt

The important point about children is that they don't really understand consequence in the way adults do, they're also impulsive and don't think.

When you teach a child to cross a road you're not teaching them to think about traffic and consequences, what you're really doing is enforcing a pattern. Move that child to a different environment (for example to cross a path that bicycles are on) and they fail to use the same rules.

Children aren't evil, they're just blank. It's why parents exist.

kwackers wrote:The important point about children is that they don't really understand consequence in the way adults do, they're also impulsive and don't think.

When you teach a child to cross a road you're not teaching them to think about traffic and consequences, what you're really doing is enforcing a pattern. Move that child to a different environment (for example to cross a path that bicycles are on) and they fail to use the same rules.

Children aren't evil, they're just blank. It's why parents exist.

The same can be true of adults too. e.g. On the road, even one closed to traffic, they would ride on the left etc, however put them on a shared use path and they ride on the right, or down the middle.