Her 11-year-old daughter has completed the council’s Cycle Safety course, but thinks it’s still ‘too scary’ to bike all the way to school by herself. Frew says she is still independent, preferring to walk or scooter to Hillview but these ways are not as quick as biking.
Wright says that the Cycle Safety programme is currently not offered to age groups below Year 6 – unless in certain circumstances. Sometimes they deliver the first part of the course to Year 5 students, which doesn’t involve an on-road test.
Frew believes it’s important for kids to be educated on cycle safety but thinks that most students shouldn’t be biking to school before the course is available. She worries about the dangers of Centaurus Road where she lives – roundabouts, narrow streets and sometimes even a lack of bike lanes make it a dangerous stretch of road.
These concerns are shared by our initial parent – who says his kids are fine biking to St Martins while supervised – but thinks that even when they’re in high school it might be too dangerous.
He wouldn’t be able to keep an eye on them tackling the busy roads at rush hour around Cashmere High School – where he anticipates he’ll send them, and he is apprehensive about letting them bike.
