Video: Riding to School in the Netherlands

[avonlea]

Very cool!  School starts this week for us.  I'm green with envy. :) 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2n_znwWroGM#at=80

[Dumb blonde]

This is indeed our daily routine here, you can see scenes like the one in the video all around the country. I ride my bike every day too, to get around town, so do many more adults.

[Silvie]

I live in a big city in the Netherlands and sometimes we have bike traffic jams!

[rocketman48097]

I am jealous, I ride my bike 3.5 miles to work and back each day, with bike lanes the entire way keeping me safe, yet I am the only one doing this in a sea of cars near me.  I know some people in my neighborhood work within biking distance (less than 5 miles), yet I am the only one doing it.  The one I talked to, who works in my building, has silly reasoning, and he's a "green Demcorat" lol.  Right. 

[Huffy2k]

I didn't see a single rider wearing a helmet...

[destron]

Great video!

For comparison, here are Japanese children walking to school in the winter. They all meet at a local neighborhood spot and the older kids make sure the younger ones get to school. Parents will show up to notify if their child won't be going to school that day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBfXLOvOrP0

[avonlea]

As a stark contrast, here is an article written by a mom who believes driving her children 1/2 mile to school is a good thing. http://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/family/i-drive-my-children-half-a-mile-to-school-1303515

After all, why spend 15 minutes walking my eight-year-old to school, lumbering along the fume-filled streets carrying her cumbersome satchel, when we could nail the journey by car in just five?

Those five minutes in the car are a lovely cosy, quiet way to start the day.
Hermetically sealed from the outside world, it’s just you and your youngster having a little down time and doing some debriefing before that playground whistle blows.

It is written by a mother in the UK, but the attitude is obviously prominent in America as well.  My children and I bike by a couple of groups of kids who are waiting for a bus and also live about 1/4-1/3 of a mile down the street from the school.  I know a handful of families who live a similar distance and drive.

[Zamboni]

The Dutch have many things figured out better than we do at this point.

I didn't see a single rider wearing a helmet...

Just about every road has a separate bike lane like that one with separate intersection signals for times that only bikes can go.  Helmets become less necessary in that situation (I still think they are a good idea, but I don't remember seeing anyone there wearing one.)  My Dutch friends who moved to the US did invest in helmets immediately when they realized what type of roads they would have to ride on.

On the absurd flip side, there are parents in my neighborhood who routinely drive their cars a half block with their kids inside, then they wait in the cars for the school bus to arrive.  It got to be such a log jam of cars at the school bus stop that the community had to send out a notice about it to remind people to only idle in safe, legal parking spots.  The weather is no excuse (not that it would be anyway, but it's almost always very pleasant walking weather in the morning.)  Heaven forbid that junior should have to take even a few extra steps to get to the pick up corner!

[destron]

As a stark contrast, here is an article written by a mom who believes driving her children 1/2 mile to school is a good thing. http://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/family/i-drive-my-children-half-a-mile-to-school-1303515

This is definitely a common practice. In a neighborhood in L.A. I used to run in 7 days a week there was an elementary school where very, very few students walked even though all the students were within walking distance. Parents would drive their children (even the 5th and 6th graders) the two blocks to school in their SUV's even though there were sidewalks. Blew my mind.

[vern]

I didn't see a single rider wearing a helmet...

That's because Holland isn't chest deep in lawyers.

[Huffy2k]

I didn't see a single rider wearing a helmet...

That's because Holland isn't chest deep in lawyers.

meh, my post wasn't in reference to our litigious society, rather in the safety factor of wearing a helmet.  I never wore a helmet until a colleague of mine died in a bike accident a few years ago.  This friend of mine was in great shape and biking on a hiking/biking trail so cars were not the issue - he fell for some unknown reason and suffered massive head trauma.  I've worn a helmet ever since and encourage all my friends to do the same.

~getting off soap box now~

[Zamboni]

It was gratifying to see the British Mum who spent so much effort justifying her clownish driving her children 800 yards to school getting so lambasted in the comments section.

[avonlea]

It was gratifying to see the British Mum who spent so much effort justifying her clownish driving her children 800 yards to school getting so lambasted in the comments section.

Lol!  Yes.