Preschool

A kindergarten friend of my son’s was riding a tiny bike at four. I was really impressed; my own boy was years away from mastering a bicycle’s balance. By six, though, this child had the run of the neighbourhood, and he struck me as way too young to be hot-dogging through the streets alone.

He was too young. Later that year his arm was broken when he was hit by a car while riding his bike. And yes, it might have been an unavoidable accident — one that could happen to anyone at any age — but it was more likely to happen at that age.

Darrell Noakes, a national examiner for the Canadian Cycling Association’s CAN-BIKE program, explains why. “Many six-year-olds can balance a bike really well, but the ability to maintain an awareness of traffic doesn’t even start to develop until about age eight. It’s not really something you can teach them — it’s in the hard wiring of the brain, and in this age group the brain is just not capable of doing things like judging speed, figuring out distance and determining where sounds are coming from, and those are very important cognitive skills that a cyclist needs to have. So although you can teach children how to ride sensibly in traffic, they still need to be supervised.”

Not convinced? In Noakes’ home province of Saskatchewan, cycling accidents are the second most frequent cause of injury-related admissions to hospital in children five to nine. That’s a lot of kids hurt on bikes.

So kids need to be at least eight in very quiet neighbourhoods — nine or ten in busier neighbourhoods — before they ride their bike alone even on residential streets. Still, don’t expect them to be magically ready unless you’ve spent time biking with them, teaching and establishing safe riding habits. “This is a great age to teach kids about safety practices on bikes,” says Rita Mezei, a public policy and advocacy specialist with Safe Kids Canada. “They like to soak up knowledge and practise learned behaviours, and they also like to remind their peers of rules they have learned.”

What do kids need to learn? Obviously, you will teach them to wear a properly fitted, certified bike helmet (and do so yourself), every time. Noakes points out that a lot of kids wear helmets that are too loose to protect them. “If the straps are loose and it’s not properly adjusted, it’s not going to do its job,” he warns. The basic rules of the road — ride on the right-hand side, signal your turns, look before entering the roadway or turning, obey traffic signs and lights — are also essential for all cyclists.

Originally published in Today's Parent, May 2004