I must admit, I would not have been a happy bunny with Nathan cycling to school
at age nine. Indeed, he didn't cycle to school unaccompanied until the last
year or so. This may be a rural area, but we have a large number of HGVs (most
of which are courteous to cyclists) and being narrow country lanes, you do get
the berks (often yoof behind the wheel of a Nova 1.0, or twit in large 4x4) who
view such roads as their own private rally tracks. Vernon or I cycled with
Nathan until we were satisfied he had developed enough road sense to be able to
cope with cycling alone and be safe with regard to himself and other road
users.

Norfolk, being a rural county, has a large number of kids transported to school
by school bus, as often schools are over 3 miles from home and rural roads have
no footpaths and no lighting to make walking an option to reasonably consider.
I would not have allowed Nathan to walk to & from school - I still wouldn't. I
wouldn't do it myself to his current school.

So I can understand school & parental reluctance to welcome Nottingham's plans
with open arms.

Saying the above - I grew up in a town. I walked to school every day (about a
mile there & a mile back I suppose to grammar school & possibly double that to
junior school). I only had to cross one road en route and that was a quiet
estate road, plus there were footpaths the entire way). Kids who were bussed in
didn't have school buses laid on, they had a local authority school bus pass,
which they had to show to the driver/conductor and were limited to certain
buses at certain times of day. That was the normal way of doing things. This
couldn't happen in my current rural locality as there simply aren't the bus
services to do it. IT has to be LA-provided school bus in this area.

No simple answer to this one, perhaps. Kids need to learn what their legs are
for, yes, but I can completely understand the reluctance of parents too.

Cheers, helen s


















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