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Should school children be allowed to bike to school?

Should school children be allowed to bike to school?

  • Absolutely not! It's too unsafe! Schools have a right to forbid it.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • It depends on the situation

    Votes: 3 8.1%
  • I'm not sure...

    Votes: 1 2.7%
  • Only if accompanied by a parent or guardian.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • It's up to the parent or guardian to decide.

    Votes: 16 43.2%
  • Seriously? This whole society is turning our kids into fat weinies with all this paranoia!

    Votes: 17 45.9%

  • Total voters
    37

MyOwnDrum

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The question is, should school children be allowed to bike to school?


Here's the article:

New York Mom Fights Middle School That Banned Her Bike Rides With Son - Local News | News Articles | National News | US News - FOXNews.com

A New York mother is fighting back against her school district after administrators and officials told her she and her son didn't have the right to bike to school together — and that his safety, even beyond school walls, was out of her hands.

Janette Kaddo Marino said their 3-mile rides to and from school in Saratoga Springs have been met with stiff opposition from officials and even a state trooper who claimed it was unsafe — and illegal — for her 12-year-old son Adam to travel on his own pair of wheels.

Undeterred, she and her seventh-grader have continued cruising to Maple Avenue Middle School this fall in defiance of a 15-year-old school regulation that effectively forces kids to take the bus or hitch a ride in a family car.
 
Ridiculous. He's riding a relatively short distance to school with his parent. Nothing wrong with that.

I would say how the child got to school should only be a concern to the school if the child had to undergo harsh situations or if the method of travel was physically or mentally harming the child.

If the kid was forced to bike 10+ miles or travel through a dangerous area where he was put in harms way the school cold say something. Though, even in that case all the school should be able to do is "say something". The police and/or child services would need to handle the rest.

This is just yet another example of a stupid law (or in this case rule) that no one believes should be in place. Even the school board says is wrong and is working to change it.
 
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OMG! I lived in Saratoga Springs, NY in '99/'00 while I went to school for the Navy. It's a small town and I can't imagine it being that dangerous there for a child to ride his bike to school, especially if the child is with a parent. Some places might be a little dangerous as far as crime goes, but there really isn't a lot of traffic problems. I wonder what the reasoning behind this law/rule in the first place was and if it is really needed.
 
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Might I point out, this boy is a role model in physical fitness that should be praised by the school district, not condemned.

The biggest danger to school children today is the growing obesity epidemic. Obesity in children is setting them up for a lifetime of health problems leading to great suffering and a shortened lifespan.
 
Might I point out, this boy is a role model in physical fitness that should be praised by the school district, not condemned.

The biggest danger to school children today is the growing obesity epidemic. Obesity in children is setting them up for a lifetime of health problems leading to great suffering and a shortened lifespan.

Seriously. The article says this kid has done the 300 mile ride between Buffalo and Albany twice now. I would probably hitch-hike it half way through. :lol:
 
This is absolutely not the business of the state or the school. If I had school age kids these day I would be home schooling them to protect them from the SCHOOLS anyway.
 
I think it depends on the age of the student, and whether the parent consents/knows.

The schools are primarily concerned about liability, and rightly so. I remember in elementary school, one girl I knew lived across the street from the school, but they wouldn't let her walk home. She had to ride the bus like everyone else. However, in middle/high school, the schools allowed parents to sign a release saying that it was OK for their kids to walk. I think the same sort of thing could apply here.

As long as the parent signs a release and the student is a reasonably responsible age (maybe 6th grade or older), I really don't see the problem.
 
I think it depends on the age of the student, and whether the parent consents/knows.

The schools are primarily concerned about liability, and rightly so. I remember in elementary school, one girl I knew lived across the street from the school, but they wouldn't let her walk home. She had to ride the bus like everyone else. However, in middle/high school, the schools allowed parents to sign a release saying that it was OK for their kids to walk. I think the same sort of thing could apply here.

As long as the parent signs a release and the student is a reasonably responsible age (maybe 6th grade or older), I really don't see the problem.

The simple fact that they do have to worry about liability is a problem in itself. The schools shouldn't have to worry that if a child happens to get hurt or killed coming to/going from school that they will be held responsible no matter what the situation is. Our justice system needs an overhaul to stop frivolous lawsuits against people/institutions that can only be remotely linked to an accident that has happened. Then we would have less people worried about being blamed for things that weren't really their fault.

I know that I lived right down the road from my elementary school. If not for the small patch of woods, I could have seen it from where I lived. My brother, cousin, and I would walk there if we missed the bus, it only took about ten minutes. The school had no problem with it. (Although, they didn't really care for it the morning we did it in the rain.) It would probably be better for kids' health if schools didn't even offer bus service for children that lived within viewing distance of the school (except for special circumstances of disabled children).
 
That should depend on:

  • the child him/herself - if she's partially or fully emancipated

  • the parents / legal guardians of the child (if any, as per above)

  • all owners of all properties located along the route that child would take

  • the school's policy

  • any contractual obligations any of the above may be subject to


This would naturally create a network of contractual obligations that would both be more flexible and more effective than the current legal system. For example, their neighborhood association may have rules against kids riding bikes, schools may require that all their kids have health insurance, a health insurance contract may require helmets and knee pads when riding a bike, and so on.
 
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I walk to and from school along a road with poor visibility and no sidewalks all of the time. As long as one does what you're supposed to with bike or pedestrian safety, you'll be fine. schools should teach kids about bike safety instead of this ridiculous crap.
 
I'd be sitting here saying the same thing... that this is bull****.


But.. there have been so many frivilous lawsuits by parents for the stupidest **** ever.
 
Unbelievable. Of course children should be allowed to bike to school!
 
If the bike path to a school takes you over a dangerous path, then no, but other then that, I see no problem in biking to school.
 
Either this is a typical example of teachers and parents being paranoid about letting children do something unobserved if only for a little time, or it could be just another example of really, really, really bad city planning that has been more concerned about making cars happy than about something as basic as making sure there are adequate biking lanes near schools.
 
The simple fact that they do have to worry about liability is a problem in itself. The schools shouldn't have to worry that if a child happens to get hurt or killed coming to/going from school that they will be held responsible no matter what the situation is. Our justice system needs an overhaul to stop frivolous lawsuits against people/institutions that can only be remotely linked to an accident that has happened. Then we would have less people worried about being blamed for things that weren't really their fault.

I know that I lived right down the road from my elementary school. If not for the small patch of woods, I could have seen it from where I lived. My brother, cousin, and I would walk there if we missed the bus, it only took about ten minutes. The school had no problem with it. (Although, they didn't really care for it the morning we did it in the rain.) It would probably be better for kids' health if schools didn't even offer bus service for children that lived within viewing distance of the school (except for special circumstances of disabled children).

I agree with most of this. Schools have far too much liability for things that aren't really their fault. Of course, if the kid disappears on his walk home from school, the school may not be able to prove that he ever left school in the first place. Or at the very least, they won't know immediately, and so they won't be able to help the police/parents much. I think that just being able to keep track of the kids is as big of a factor as the actual legal liability.

But obviously common sense needs to come into play here. If the parent is biking with the kid every day, then the school policy is ridiculous for not allowing that.
 
I walk to and from school along a road with poor visibility and no sidewalks all of the time. As long as one does what you're supposed to with bike or pedestrian safety, you'll be fine. schools should teach kids about bike safety instead of this ridiculous crap.

Or as long as some pedophile is not stalking out school kids and decides to grab ya? Sure you will be fine.
 
I get the sneaking suspicion that back in the day some gold digger sued the school district over something lame and they made this law to protect the school from future incidents.

Run-on sentences FTW :2wave:

I didn't write the link sentence, that was the one that automatically pops up when one pastes the url.
 
Who was saying anything about the link sentence? :confused:

If you are critiquing my writing style, that is a less than classy internet posting tactic, IMO... :rolleyes:
 
If you are critiquing my writing style, that is a less than classy internet posting tactic, IMO... :rolleyes:

Uhhh no I could give a **** about your writing style, I was commenting on the story :confused:
 
What happens off school property is none of the school's business.
 
Oh god. In sixth grade, I rode my bike two miles to school, then back, every day with a gaggle of local kids. It was never an issue. I fail to see why it ever would be.

Then again, I went to school in Davis, CA. Davis might actually be the bicycle capital of America. I wouldn't be surprised if there's more bike rack slots than parking spaces in that town:roll:
 
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