The Campaign for Childhood Freedom. This is your "stop the child murder" moment (see what happens when Londoners have children)

Earlier today I wrote a blog post about how Londoners use cars for exactly the same journeys as the Dutch use bikes. However, there was more than just that in Transport for London's data and at least one thing which I thought much more important: How people behave when they have children.

What happens when Londoners have children ?

UNICEF Index of child
well-being. High cycling
countries in orange.

TfL say that "Car trip rates are consistently around 50 per cent higher amongst residents of households with at least one child than those living in childless households across all income bands. Averaged across all income bands, adults in households with children make 0.93 car driver trips a day on average, compared to 0.58 car driver trips per person in households without children."

They go on to say that "Parents of pre-school and primary school aged children have the highest car driver trip rates, and young adult households by far the lowest car driver trip rates."

It may be difficult for campaigners to see why, but this is evidence, as if we needed it, that Londoners care about their children. Being cocooned in a car is bad for children, but parents in London see see driving as the least bad option to try to keep their children safe.

It's not just London, it's everywhere
Parents across the world are united by a desire for their children to be safe. Every parent wants the best for their children, however while Dutch children benefit from an environment in which their parents can give them great freedom and which UNICEF says gives them the best wellbeing of any children, their British counterparts are rate second from bottom (only the USA is worse) in well-being, have less freedom than in the past and are cocooned in their parents' cars because of fear for their safety. This isn't only bad for the development of children but also for parents who have the added stress and expense of having to work as unpaid taxi drivers.

Children across most of the world share the same problems of lack of independence and this is a large part of the reason for the obesity 'epidemic' which leads to many calls or action. Nearly half of Britain's children are not getting the bare minimum of daily exercise needed for good health. It's similar in many other countries. Sadly, the solutions proposed often do not include the idea of allowing children the freedom that they crave because people can't see how that can be achieved.

Very young child cycling home from school on a normal
day in Assen. When she's a few years older she'll do it
without her Mum. Who doesn't want such freedom for
their children ? (this photo was not taken in a park but
in a very typical modern Dutch residential area)

I do not criticise parents in London or elsewhere because they want to keep their children safe. I also cannot criticise them for attempting to do so by driving them to their destinations in the family car rather than allowing their children to make their own way on a bicycle. Parents who do this are sacrificing their own time to benefit their children. Driving their children is an act of love.

The harm caused to children as a result of this is not the result of decisions made by individual parents who have no choice but to react to their environment so much as it is the inevitable result of decades of road design which has made cycling and also walking less than desirable, even on many residential streets.

Where's Boris ?
In London the fault lies with Transport for London and the buck stops with Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, who for all his flannel about cycling has done almost nothing at all to make it possible for the majority of the population, and particularly for children, to travel independently instead of having to rely on their parents.

Events on closed roads demonstrate how popular cycling could be in London if only people felt safe to ride their bikes. But people do not feel safe and they will not cycle until they do. The standard of infrastructure in London is so poor than even most adults do not cycle now. Just 2% of journeys are by bike. In order for children to be able to cycle, the infrastructure needs to be far better as not only do The degree of subjective safety required to encourage parents to allow their children to have freedom.

A month has now passed since we invited Boris Johnson and other London politicians to come and see what it is that makes it possible for Dutch people to cycle as much as they do and to see for himself how Dutch children benefit from their freedom.

Since we sent our invitation, Boris Johnson has got himself into the paper again, this time cycling in Australia. Australias has similar problems with childhood obesity and lack of children's independence and social development to those of the UK. But what good is this doing for Britain ? How does this help the children of London, the UK, or Australia for that matter ?

Campaigners. It's time for effective action !
There's an opportunity for cycling campaigners if they wish to take it.

The rear window of our somewhat old
car displays a faded sticker left over
from a previous ineffective attempt
to improve conditions by asking for
"space for cycling"

Forget about ineffective campaigning for things like "space for cycling" (it may as well be "help the shoplifters" so far as the general public are concerned). Stop antagonizing people by talking about controversial but not particularly important issues like strict liability. Stop expending effort in debating the pros and cons of a single street in London which has been inadequately transformed for the second time. None of this is going to make cycling into an everyday experience for the whole population.

By concentrating on these details you are missing the big picture.

We moved here so that our children could have the same
advantages as do Dutch children. It's not something everyone
can do. We have campaigned for children from the start on
this blog. This is what "Go Dutch" should have been about!
Sadly, that campaign in London was derailed from the start.
This photo is of our children, now adults, on holiday in the
Netherlands next to the "cycling lesson" statue in Groningen

Cycling should be for everyone

Campaigners are partly to blame for the UK's disastrous last forty years because they've consistently failed to focus on the issues that really matter and have instead concentrated only on what existing cyclists needed to continue as a minority. Partly as a result of this emphasis, cyclists certainly are a minority now. By allowing themselves to be pigeon-holed as "the cyclists", and by setting their own standards so low, campaigners made it easier for government to get away with decades of under-investment in cycling infrastructure which could have benefited everyone.

Slowly, but oh so surely, the policies of successive governments have led to Britain's parents believing they have no choice but to transport their children by car. Parents want only the best for their children, but their choices are limited by the environment. This is why both walking and cycling to school have declined while driving to school has risen.

Parents are doing the best they can for their children, but while they keep their children safe from being killed in collisions on the streets by transporting them by car, those same cars will still kill them just as surely if they lead to a sedentary lifestyle and the resulting health issues.

This is your "Stop The Child Murder" moment. The best issue to campaign on now in the UK is the same issue as the Dutch campaigned on forty years ago: The safety and health of all the nation's children.

The Campaign for Childhood Freedom (links removed because domain abandoned)
A good slogan is needed for a campaign which is focused around children. "Stop The Child Murder" worked because it was emotive and was something that the whole population could get behind. The Campaign for Childhood Freedom also seeks the widest possible support. The health of future generations is vitally important, everyday exercise is vital to improving the health of children, and the best way of achieving this is to make it possible for every child to be active in their daily life and have a degree of freedom and independence similar to that which Dutch children benefit from.

For how many adults is the memory of their first bicycle also a memory of the freedom and independence which it provided ?

Children don't have driving licenses. If they are not to be cocooned in motor vehicles then there is a choice of travelling no further than walking distance or of experiencing the vastly greater degree of freedom which a bicycle provides.

To enable today's children to have the same experiences as their parents and grandparents requires a change to the infrastructure so that they are safe. Cycling infrastructure must be of a quality that you would let a five year old use it and it must go everywhere. Not only to school, but to beaches, parks, city centres and anywhere else that children might want to go.

Visit the website of
The Campaign for Childhood Freedom

There's no need to alienate the audience with anti-car policies. The Dutch don't. However, streets around schools certainly should not be dominated by cars

It doesn't only help children

Infrastructure of the quality required truly to enable children to cycle in safety works best for everyone. That includes older people who mostly don't cycle at all in other countries and those who like to ride at speed.

Read more about what the freedom of Dutch children, the problems facing British children or my previous posts about campaigning for children. Also see how Dutch children get to school.

Whatever you might think about the merits of campaigning for children, they're the only possible source of tomorrow's adult cyclists. Infrastructure which is good enough that parents find it safe for their children is good enough for confident and fast adult cyclists as well. We all have the same need for direct, convenient routes and safety. The Netherlands has been easily the most successful nation at encouraging cycling. See examples of what works well in The Netherlands and consider taking a study tour to learn more.

Health, Wealth and Happiness. The benefits of cycling last through your life

I made three short videos during the study tour two weeks ago. As it happens, all three of them show children and teenagers using the cycling infrastructure in one way or another.


A cycle-path through a residential area in Assen followed by a crossing which is safe for all to use


Teenagers in one corner of a park in Groningen. It was a sunny afternoon, so thousands of people had ridden their bikes to different corners of this and other parks. It's similar if you cycle to the beach.


In this video there's not so much cycling as walking. 6000 people, mostly from primary schools around Assen, take part each year in the local Avondvierdaagse. Participants walk 10 km each day on four consecutive evenings. Because of the number of people taking part they often cause a little disruption on roads and cycle-paths in and around the city, but this isn't the sort of thing that any reasonable person would complain about.

Most, if not all, towns in the Netherlands have an event like this, modelled after the internationally famous Nijmegse Vierdaagse. The Nijmegen event attracts an amazing 45000 participants who each walk a minimum of 50 km per day (reduced to 40 km per day for people under 20 or over 50 years old) for four days in order to earn their medal.

Why are children important ?
Why do I concentrate so much on young cyclists ? That's easy to answer. Today's children are the only possible source of tomorrow's adult cyclists and children are a common interest of the whole population. Children love to cycle and cycling is a transport mode which can offer children a greater degree of freedom and affordability than anything else that is open to them.

If we don't "get them when they're young", i.e. at the age when the affordability and freedom offer a unique combination then we must instead try to convince older people to take up cycling when they've already formed a habit of travelling by other means and when they can more easily afford other means.

Under 18s in The Netherlands make a huge proportion of their
journeys by bike. 0.8 journeys per day for under 12s, 1.7
journeys per day for 12 to 16 year olds. Adults cycle less but
even over 75s make an average of one trip every three days.

Countries which fail to achieve a high cycling rate amongst the young will struggle even more to achieve it amongst adults.

Promoting cycling for everyday journeys is not the same as promoting it as a sport. As others have noted before, sports like swimming or playing tennis are worthy but they are of no use to travel to school or to visit friends. But cycling requires something that other "sports" do not. While any road design will suffice in order to transport people to a swimming pool or tennis court, those same roads very possibly will not suffice so far as making cycling attractive and accessible enough that people who are not cycling enthusiasts will see riding a bike as something for them. To achieve a high modal share amongst young children and teenagers requires our streets and cycle-paths to be so subjectively safe that not only do children feel safe, but that all their parents expect them to be safe as well. This is how the point is reached where children are given the freedom to travel independently.

Adult obesity in OECD countries. Can they be compared
directly ? As some are "self-reported", methodologies
clearly vary between countries.

The avondvierdaagse youtube video (above) was made public a few days ago and one of the first comments asked "Where are the overweight children?". According to the figures I've seen, obesity levels in the Netherlands are somewhat lower than those of many other countries, but not actually near the lowest.

As for what proportion of children are obese, that's difficult to judge. Some figures put this as high as 7% of the total, which would mean you'd expect to see two obese children in each classroom. Is this true ? I don't actually know as I don't work in a school and I've never studied this. It seems high, though. To my eyes there are obviously fewer really large people here than in the UK and that's despite our province, Drenthe, being worse than average for The Netherlands as a whole. I am given to wonder whether differences in methodology of reporting obesity might mean that little can be learned from the comparison of figures which come from different countries. I've seen the same thing with cycling modal share figures, which are almost never gathered in the same way in different countries. In fact, there are often several different conflicting figures available for modal share even for the same town.

Dutch children have the same taste for overly fatty food and soft drinks as those who live elsewhere. However, unlike children elsewhere, the great majority of Dutch children walk or cycle to school. It doesn't stop with getting to school, though. School trips are by bike too (including regular weekly trips to play sports) and children make trips to go shopping, visit friends or buy fast food by bike as well. Without the cycling habit (12 to 16 year olds each make an average of about 1.7 trips by bike each day), it is very likely that obesity would be a bigger problem here than it is.

UNICEF Index of child
well-being. High cycling
countries in orange.

Health, Wealth and Happiness for everyone
In my view, adults owe the next generation the best start in life and the best future we can possibly provide them. If children can cycle then they already have a head start. The freedom of Dutch children is a good part of what makes this country score so well on the UNICEF index.

However, we could also do what is required to enable mass cycling purely for selfish reasons. Let's pretend for a moment that we're not bothered at all about children. Just for the next few paragraphs, think only of the adults...

Dutch doctors find that cycling helps to treat many ills amongst adults. Dutch companies gain a competitive advantage due to their cycling employees. The tax payer gains because when all the costs and benefits are worked out, it's cheaper to build high quality cycle facilities than not to build them. Motorists benefit because more cycling results in fewer traffic jams.

The advantages of cycling keep on adding up, but in order to reap these rewards it is necessary to build infrastructure which offers everyone a very high degree of both safety and convenience.

If we're to achieve mass cycling amongst adults we have to enable it for children so that the pattern is established and can continue through their entire life. Not only is cycling good for physical health, but also for mental health. Happy and healthy children have a better chance of becoming happy and healthy adults.

Teenagers ride home three abreast from their school 17 km away while young children riding a shorter distance in the opposite direction are overtaken by racing cyclists. All these people, and myself as well, need the same infrastructure i.e. that which is easy to understand and offers direct and safe journeys. This consistent high quality experience can be achieved where there are cycle-paths and where there are not. Why aim for anything less ?

A new version of the UNICEF report was published in April. The Netherlands is still in first place, Finland, Sweden and Germany are still within the top six.

What It Really Means to Go Dutch - interview on The Bike Show

A couple of weeks ago, Jack Thurston from The Bike Show kindly interviewed me. He did a splendid job of editing my ramblings down into something coherent and published the result today. You can hear the interview by clicking on the play button below, introduced by no less a cycling hero than Eddy Merckx !

If you can't see the play button, click here to listen to the radio interview

So what does it really mean to "Go Dutch" ?

Cycling home from school with a
friend. No cars near by. UNICEF
rates Dutch children as having
the best well-being in the world.

There have been many proposals recently for "Dutch" infrastructure, some more convincing than others. Many of them, in my opinion, rather miss the point.

First of all it's necessary to know why it is that people cycle so much more in the Netherlands than elsewhere. While some people roll out the same old myths and excuses time and time again, I'm still absolutely convinced that it comes down primarily to one thing: a lack of subjective safety in other countries puts people off.

Cars so far away you can pretend
they don't exist.

Why do I believe this ? It's quite simply actually. I spent many years trying to promote cycling in the UK in many ways, including driving around the country with a huge bus full of bikes for people to try out. It was never even slightly difficult to convince people to try our bikes and to cycle in a controlled environment. There is huge enthusiasm and people virtually snatch bikes out of your hands in order to ride them. The huge pent up demand for cycling is also demonstrated by the massive popularity of other events on closed streets, such as Sky Rides across the UK and Ciclovias in the Americas. Events like this make "cyclists" out of "non cyclists". Such events are not demonstrations of true mass cycling in themselves, but they are very effective demonstrations of unmet pent up demand for cycling.

There are cars, but they're over there
somewhere.

It's not the same story if you ask those same people to ride to work in the rush hour, or to let their children cycle to school. Make these suggestions and you won't find much enthusiasm outside of the self-selected group who already cycle.

In the Netherlands people already do cycle in their thousands. In fact, to be more accurate, they cycle in their millions, every day. It's really impressive. What's more, it's not a narrow demographic, but the entire population. The comparison with other countries is remarkably stark. No-where else is the same.

And this is what it really means to "Go Dutch". It's not specifically about cycle-paths, segregation by means other than cycle-paths, unravelling of routes, how traffic light junctions are designed, or what Dutch roundabouts look like. It's not about how much cycle-parking there is at railway stations or even about cycling being safer in the Netherlands than in other countries.

Disabled with an able bodied friend?
You can ride side by side in safety.

Infrastructure is not an end in itself. Rather, it is the important enabling technology to allow mass cycling to occur where there are motor vehicles. Without motor vehicles, no specific cycling infrastructure is needed. But that is true only when motor vehicles are excluded.

People cycle in the Netherlands because it feels so normal to do so. And why does it feel so normal ? Because cycling is efficient and stress free in a way that simply does not compare with anywhere else. Remarkably, to many people (including many Dutch people) this simple truth is hidden in plain sight. It looks like people cycle simply because "they're Dutch" but actually it's because the experience is so attractive that it pulls people in.

This is what needs to be kept in mind when people talk about "Going Dutch". It's not about putting in a few pieces of infrastructure, it's about civilizing the entire experience of cycling for everyone. Until that happens, cycling will remain a minority pursuit for those people who are relatively confident whatever the conditions.

My mother cycling next to
me during a visit to The
Netherlands. Is there any
need for an explanation of
why this feels safer than
riding at home ?

I wrote a few paragraphs back that the infrastructure is not an end in itself, but that doesn't mean that it's importance should be underplayed. For a high level of cycling everywhere, there must be good quality infrastructure everywhere that there are cars and it must be a very fine grid and have a very high quality level. This is what makes cycling accessible to everyone. Unfortunately, this still does not seem to be well enough understood and it's a reason why attempts to "Go Dutch" are often doomed to fail.

You can't "Go Dutch" on an inadequate budget, by setting a low target to aim for, with a few prestige projects, in a very small area of a town, at just one junction or along one road, by skimping on the standards or by proposing to build good enough infrastructure only where it is easy to do so and ignoring the parts where it is difficult. Mediocrity simply doesn't work.

Isolated bits and pieces don't work. The network is the infrastructure. That's what makes the difference between 2% of journeys by bike and 27% of journeys by bike.

As I pointed out five years ago, a short distance "may as well be a thousand miles" if there are unpleasant conditions for cycling along the route. People simply won't choose to do it.

Ultimately the result of any cycle campaigning, infrastructure building, training, publicity or anything else intended to increase cycling can be measured in its success only if it can be demonstrated that this has genuinely led to more cycling. That's what it's all about.

One more question
While Jack's editing hides it very well (we recorded our own parts separately and he edited the two separate recordings together), we had quite a lot of problems due to dropouts on Skype during the interview. As a result, one question which he asked stands out in the interview as not being answered properly. He sent it to me again this afternoon in email: "One point I thought was particularly interesting - and which I don't quite think we got to a satisfactory answer - was how do UK (or US) campaigners stay motivated in the face of continuously inadequate responses from government."

It's a very good question and it deserves an answer.

I know that some people see my contribution to the debate about cycling as rather negative. I understand why: I do not accept what I read in press releases at face value, I have rounded on child cycle trainers as having presided over a drop in child cycling and I have often criticised campaigners for setting their standards too low. However that doesn't mean that I don't respect those who give freely of their time in order to try to improve the lot of cyclists. I have experienced for myself the difficulties of being a cycling campaigner in the UK and I have seen for myself how slow progress is. There is a certain amount of churn amongst campaigners and sometimes the group memory seems to be short because those who've "seen it all before" give up and are replaced by other people who take the same roles. Some remarkable individuals stay in the same roles for far longer than I managed to and I am impressed by their ability to do so.

The gadget displayed to the right was described by one correspondent as "the most depressing app of 2013", but my intention with it was to help us all to stay focused. I'm going to continue to tell it as it is because I think nothing is gained by pretending otherwise. However, my criticism is not of campaigners and trainers but of the environment that they work in. Good people are putting in an enormous amount of effort but their efforts are being squandered by politicians who talk but do not act.

I see it as vitally important for both campaigning and training to continue and of course people must continue to see for themselves the importance of what they do.

While mass events are not genuine mass cycling, they do have a role to play. They demonstrate support for cycling and they have the potential to get far more people involved than would normally turn up at a "cycling" event. Get as many people on bikes as possible. Demonstrate the pent-up demand which exists. Make people smile because they're cycling. Most importantly, get children on bikes. They're the only source of future cyclists. This is why we think it is of vital importance to campaign for the right of children right to cycle.

A lot of work is still needed on the political front. Lobbying politicians is a good way of making yourself noticed but politicians can be quite good at giving the answer you want to hear. Questioning them and publishing the results is a good way of pointing out that some candidates have more of a clue than others. At a later date this also lets you compare what they said with what they did. Push the benefits of cycling and not cycling itself. The well-being of children is surely of everyone's concern and children demonstrably fair best in the countries where most children cycle. If no-one looks to be doing a good job, try to get yourself elected.

Also organise events for cyclists. There's nothing wrong with "cyclists breakfast" type events which target those who already cycle and reward them for doing what they already do. These events don't do anything much to grow cycling but they support people who are already doing the right thing and help to make life enjoyable.

Fast cyclists benefit from good
infrastructure just like anyone else.
They have the same need for direct,
safe and easy to follow routes.

Make sure you cycle. Try types of cycling that you've not tried before. i.e. if you've never toured, try touring. If you've never raced, try racing. If you've never been out with the local CTC group, go and meet them for a Sunday ride. Of course, I'm not telling you that you must do any of these things if you really don't like the sound of them, but in my experience it's all good fun. Cyclists are a small enough minority already and do not benefit from being perceived as separate "tribes" with different needs. Build bridges between cyclists so that you can work together towards infrastructure which will work for all of you.

Learn about good infrastructure
If you believe it is practical to ban all cars then you can skip this section. Otherwise, changes to infrastructure will be needed if cycling can ever be made acceptable to the population at large.

Become knowledgeable about infrastructure that works for cycling. Don't propose things that you wouldn't want to use yourself. Everyone, from 3 year olds on tricycles through to experienced fast cyclists, benefits from exactly the same things. i.e. direct, safe and easy to follow routes for cycling which are comfortable and pleasant to use. Don't seek out alternatives to well tried designs for infrastructure simply on the grounds that they are novel, less expensive, or not Dutch. Why look for an alternative unless something else from somewhere else has proven to be more successful than the best Dutch examples ? The Netherlands is not perfect, but it is the leading nation in cycling for a reason. If you're considering something else it'd better be good.

Try to get politicians and planners to come on our study tours. Come along yourself. This blog started originally as a way to keep in touch with people who'd been on the tours. The tours started because we realised back in 2006 that no-one was doing such a thing. There have always been many misconceptions about what had been achieved in the Netherlands and we do our best to show people how it really is. We're now in a unique position to explain things with the perspective of having lived both in the UK and the Netherlands and because we speak English as a first language this helps to prevent misunderstandings.

We're not affiliated to any government agency and we pull no punches. We show not only where things are good, but also what doesn't work so well.

Other good stuff
Please also read Mark Treasure's blog post from earlier this week entitled "Why do the Dutch cycle more than the British ?"

Still wondering about the success of mass cycling events ? Get up high enough and you'll see lots of people take part even in cities which set ludicrously long time-scales for progress on cycling.

Study Tour report - a young group from Norway

First day: Single file on a direct cycle-
path between a village and Assen

Two weeks ago, we hosted a Study Tour group from Norway. Six students aged between 13 and 15 from the Kjølnes Ungdomsskole (a secondary school) in Porsgrunn came with two older students aged 18 and two adults, Michel Fouler from "På sykkel i Telemark" who organised the tour and Bent Gundersen who is one of the teachers. All are from the Telemark county in Norway.

A discussion with Dutch students
allowed experiences to be shared.

Due to the efforts of cyclists in the area including Michel's cycle training organisation, Alle Barn Sykler, and an enthusiastic cycling headmaster, 60% of students cycle regularly to the Kjølnes Ungdomsskole. However, the same is not true of Norway in general.

Posing with the Fietsles (cycling
lesson) statue in Groningen

Cycling amongst teenagers has declined sharply in Norway. While 15% of those aged between 13 and 17 cycled on a daily basis in 2005, by 2009 this figure had shrunk to 9%.

This is one of the reasons why there was interest in comparing the conditions in which Norwegian and Dutch children and teenagers cycle, because how pleasant the conditions are for cycling certainly affects how much people will cycle.

Pre-schoolers in Groningen riding home
from day-care on their own bikes

Work on a presentation started even during the journey home. On Friday 23rd of March, a week after returning home, the students travelled to Oslo to a workshop with the Road Transportation Department in Norway, connected with planning for the Norwegian Bicycle Masterplan for 2014-2023. Tobias and Chatrine, two of the 15 year old students, made a presentation based on what they had seen in Assen and Groningen on the Study Tour.

Amongst the items in their presentation was this film, made by the two older students, Ingvild Stensrud and Herman Andreassen. It combines footage from a pre-school, primary school and secondary school in Assen and Groningen. See how children, all types of children, even very young, with disabilities, from immigrant families, cycle to school in the Netherlands and gain independence by doing so:

Our observations
This was a wonderful group to host. The confident and intelligent manner of the teenagers outshone their ages. They were genuinely interested in the issues and they asked sensible questions.

The last day: Confident and without
helmets.

It was interesting to see how confidence on the bikes grew over just three days in the Netherlands. At first the group was reluctant to cycle two abreast due to concerns about taking up too much space. This concern passed quickly. In its place came the Dutch, confident and sociable way of riding next to a friend and talking at the same time.

One of the missing
helmets was
in a bin on Friday

Similarly, on the first day, all the students wore helmets. By the third day, no-one could find one. We'd never presume to tell anyone what to wear when cycling, and that goes double for other peoples' children. However, by the end of three days there had been a revolution. This is subjective safety at work. People reacting to the conditions.

Index of child well-being for a
range of countries. High cycling
countries highlighted in orange

It was mentioned to us that Norwegians were not entirely happy about being in 7th place in the index of child well-being from UNICEF (is your country in the list ?). As I've noted before, the top four nations in this survey are the top four cycling nations in Europe.

The connection with cycling should not be surprising. Dutch children and teenagers see cycling as freedom. Even though we live in a rural area and the distance that some have to travel to get to their chosen school can be long, there are no school buses here. We were told by in our school meeting in Assen that one of their students currently rides more than 60 km as a round trip each day to get to school and back home. This is interrupted only for a brief period mid-winter when her parents object to her riding the entire way in darkness. Why prefer cycling ? Because otherwise she'd miss out on the social aspect of riding with other students.

Subjective safety at work: Five Dutch
children on skates and one on a go-kart
chasing us as we pass a man walking
two dogs. All separate from the road

While they were here, the Norwegian teenagers experienced some of the freedom that Dutch teenagers find to be normal. This freedom comes because of the safe cycling conditions and the safe cycling conditions are due to the infrastructure. Our Norwegians visitors were passionate about what they saw, and wanted to take this back with them. We hear that the presentation and film have had quite an effect and hope that Norway's planners and politicians will listen to their youngsters.

Children and teenagers need freedom. Instead of designing around adults in cars, planners must design around the needs of children. Children must be seen as the rightful heirs of our future transport network.

We still have places on the public study tour in May, and can organise tours on most dates to suit groups. Contact us to make a booking. We would be very pleased to meet with an official group from Norway this year. We can show you exactly what the students saw.

Please also read more feedback from the Norwegian group.

Around 4% of journeys in Norway as a whole are made by bicycle. Youtube videos reveal many of the same problems for cyclists in Oslo as in many other cities around the world. Click for more stories about school travel in the Netherlands.

Who do we campaign for ?

Road sign in Assen designed by child.
"I'd rather cycle". Many children and
adults elsewhere feel the same way

Three years ago, I posed the rhetorical question "Do the British love their children too?" This week, I received an answer in the form of a note which said "For my children in Bristol. Thank you for your work."

In the 1970s, the Dutch reacted to increased danger on the streets by calling for change to make their children safer while preserving their ability to make independent journeys.

In other nations, children have in large part been removed from the streets. They no longer make journeys in an independent manner. For instance, in Britain, newspapers report such things as that a teenage boy can't make a journey of 11 km on his own while in the Netherlands this sort of distance, and much longer distances, are quite routinely ridden by many teenagers every day to get to school, even in winter.

A peloton of teenagers heading home
after school.

A retrospective glance shows that the Dutch did something extraordinary in the 1970s. With mass support, the future of the country was changed. If this had not happened then the Netherlands could be a very different place now.

This was pure luck. The Dutch care for their children, of course, but they do not care for them any more than parents in other nations do. What happened in the Netherlands was that the right people supported the right campaign at the right time. With the right support for the right campaign, similar things could just as easily happen in other countries.

The power and compassion of parents is significant. Cycling campaigners sometimes scoff at ill-conceived "safety" campaigns to force children to wear fluorescent clothing and helmets, however such safety campaigns represent a lot of passion. They come from parents who are not happy with the conditions under which their children live. Change is wanted, and these parents are active in fighting for it. The effort is often misdirected into ineffective campaigns, and far too much seems to benefit the producers of fluorescent clothing and helmets rather than actually changing things. Meanwhile, the rate of walking and cycling amongst children continues to drop in the UK.

Confident youngsters in Assen city
centre. On average, Dutch children
travel independently from 8.6 years

If this energy could be redirected into a campaign to really make conditions on the streets better, then the UK, and other nations, could very easily achieve what the Dutch have achieved, and quite possibly much more. By including parents and children in a campaign, it can achieve mass support which goes well beyond a campaign focussed on "cyclists".

Unfortunately, many adult cycling campaigners continue to treat child cyclists as something different to themselves. It has become common in the UK to call for a two speed approach with a double network. Campaigners want on-road facilities for themselves (the "fast cyclists") while also asking for off-road infrastructure to cater for "slow cyclists". This approach is wrong. For a start, it loses the support of many people because it sounds rather like "cyclists" are greedy. It sounds like a request from a greedy person who wants both to have their cake and also to eat it. However, its the biggest problem is that it is doomed to failure by the low expectations embedded right into the demands being made: Off-road infrastructure is expected to be inconvenient for experienced cyclists, while on-road infrastructure is expected to be unsafe for the inexperienced.

There is no logic behind this strange dichotomous approach. Infrastructure which isn't convenient enough for experienced "fast" cyclists also isn't convenient for "slow" cyclists. Infrastructure which isn't safe enough for inexperienced cyclists also isn't pleasant for the experienced. The two speed approach introduces a divide between two groups of people who need not be divided. It gives no clear route for progression from one set of infrastructure to the other, nor a clear reason why there should be a progression and it helps to keep "cyclists" as an out-group separated from the rest of society.

Cycle-racers, parents and children, all
on one cycle-path in Assen

It is possible to design infrastructure which works equally well for everyone. That is the gold standard. It is what the Dutch did and this blog is filled with examples (see links on the right). Don't ask for less.

For real progress in cycling, campaigners need to start to "think of the children". However, children should be thought of not as small people to be condescending towards, but as the rightful heirs of our future transport network. Today's child cyclists are tomorrow's adult cyclists. It is by working with today's concerned parents, by understanding that their concerns are valid and need to be addressed, that tomorrow's adult and child cyclists will best be catered for.

Not only do other countries have a chance of improving conditions for cyclists, but by the same means they could also improve their own positions in the UNICEF index of child well-being. Is this not something that every country should aspire to ?

There is no need to reinvent the wheel. Whatever problems may appear to stand in the way, the Dutch forty year head-start which should always serve as a reference.

The note which prompted this post was attached to a donation which we were sent by a blog reader who is a concerned parent from Bristol. Bristol is Britain's first Cycling City. It received extra funding for a short period of time, at nowhere near the level of Dutch funding. There was much speculation about how the money was spent, and the programme unfortunately failed to meet its targets. To this day, Bristol is still failing to provide safe conditions for child, and adult, cyclists. What happened in the Netherlands in the 1970s was almost unique, but similar things did also occur in Denmark.

Two views of the school run in Assen

Two views of the school run in Assen videoed by people who came on the CEoGB study tour.

I think it's worth pointing out that motorists have priority over cyclists at the crossing. However, the occasional toots you hear are from drivers indicating to cyclists that they can cross:

David Arditti.

Joe Dunckley.

If you start the first video, wait 25 seconds and then start the second, then you'll see two views of the same scene synchronized.

This is what it looks like when cyclists truly don't come second best to drivers. This is what it looks like when there are genuinely "safe routes to school". This is what the Netherlands looks like forty years after the Stop de Kindermoord campaign fought for the safety of children.

Compare with the chaos that still exists in the road where we lived in Cambridge.

To book a study tour, click here.

Wake up Britain, there's work to be done !

Two interesting items tonight. First of all, tomorrow is the Official Launch of the Cycling Embassy of Great Britain.

At 11:30 AM, you are asked to show your support by turning up at the South side of Lambeth Bridge in London. There's a short tour of 500 metres in length which will include "London's worst bike lane" on the way to a celebratory picnic in Victoria Tower Gardens on the other side of the river.

Full details on the embassy website. Sadly, I won't be there. However, if I were in the UK, that's where I'd be tomorrow. This new group is perhaps the best hope that Britain has at the moment to ever achieve a mass cycling culture.

The second item in this post is included as an example of why the Embassy is so important. I've mentioned before how children in the UK are increasingly threatened by yet at the same time more dependent on cars. Now there's more bad news:

Peter Miller writes that "there will be no ‘travel mode’ question in the next school census". His suggestion is that the ministers involved are trying to bury bad news by simply not bothering to collect this data. The graphs on the right, of modes of school transport from 1995 to 2010, show why they might want to.

For both 5 - 10 year olds (top) and 11-16 year olds (underneath), cycling is the pink line, lurking at the bottom of the graph. Dark blue represents walking, still large, but dropping. The yellow line shows an upward trend. That's children being driven to school.

There's quite a contrast here. While Britain concentrates on the wrong solution, Dutch children on average travel independently to school from the age of 8.6. They do so safely in huge numbers, also making school trips and going to sporting events by bike. Dutch children are not only very safe on the roads, but they're also very happy. The reason for this happiness is known to adults as well as amongst the children themselves. Freedom makes a huge difference. When the BBC asked, one of the children answered that "the bike is actually really important".

Cycling starts with the young. The Dutch started the modern transformation of their cities by looking first at the welfare of the young. A good turnout of children at the embassy picnic tomorrow would be very good to see.

The good people of the Cycling Embassy of Great Britain came on a study tour to see how the infrasturcture of the Netherlands changes cycling.

Playing Out

Playing Out is a project in Bristol in the UK which closes streets so that children can play. It's a great idea, illustrating the loss in freedom of children at the same time as giving a chance for proper outdoor play, even if only occasionally and not with a permanent change to the streets.

I quite often cover the rights of children playing in the street.

Dutch woonerven ("Home Zones") are similar in concept to "Play Streets" which used to exist in the UK, but the concept seems to have been forgotten.

It's worth bearing in mind that the turnaround in prospects for Dutch cyclists, adults as well as children, came about in large part because of looking at improving conditions for children. There are far more parents than "cyclists" in the UK. They're a much more powerful lobby group, and no-one can argue that the rights of children are unimportant.

The Netherlands also has an organisation which organises play in the streets. The Buitenspeeldag - Outside play day is on the 1st of June this year, and many streets across the country will be closed completely for play.

I came across this via Mark at IBikeLondon.

Stop the Child Murder

I often get asked what can be done to increase the cycling rate in countries outside the Netherlands. It's often noted that there is little government or public enthusiasm for spending even small amounts of money on the small number of people who are currently cyclists.

I think it's a good idea to look at what worked in the Netherlands.

Cycling in the Netherlands declined sharply in the post-second world war period. In the 1950s and 1960s, existing cycle paths were in many cases removed in order to make space for more cars. "From 1950 to 1975, the bicycle was almost entirely excluded from the government's vision"(Dutch Bicycle Master Plan 1999). The number of deaths on the roads rose, especially amongst children on their way to and from school. In 1972, a total of 3264 people were killed on Dutch roads, and at around the same time, in 1973, 450 road deaths were of children.

Note that this was a long struggle. The
photo shows Minister Zeevalking
receiving information from protestors
in 1982. (wikimedia)

1973 was also the year that the pressure group "Stop de Kindermoord" ("Stop the Child Murder") started. The object of this group was to point out the number of deaths caused to children and to campaign to reduce them. They successfully influenced the Dutch government to re-emphasize building of segregated cycle paths, and to make money available to pay for them. This resulted in both a rise in cycling and a reduction in cyclist deaths, reversing the previous trend. It has been a success not only for child cyclists, but for all cyclists, and indeed for the population as a whole.

There is a lesson here for other countries. I'll take Britain as an example.

It is difficult to campaign for better conditions for "cyclists" in Britain. Cyclists are a minority group, and not a very well liked minority at that. Cyclists can be considered to be an out-group. This is a large part of why it is that cycling initiatives come and go in Britain. There's no real emphasis placed on results because too few people see it as important. When cyclists in Britain are hit by cars, they get very little sympathy from the public at large.

Campaigning for child safety is different. Very different. Children are not a minority group. Most families include children, all adults used to be children. Child safety is an issue which is important to everyone and difficult to ignore. All parents want their children to be safe.

It is clear that there is a problem with child safety on the roads in the UK. This is the underlying reason why it is that children are increasingly being driven to school. It is the reason why American style school buses are proposed for British kids, and even the reason why someone made the news for driving with his walking child on the school run. When British parents attack traffic wardens next to a school, they even do this in part out of concern for the safety of their own children. These are not solutions to the problem, but they are reactions to it. They demonstrate that parents are not remotely happy with the roads as they are.

Campaigners often talk about there being a suppressed demand for cycling in Britain. It's true. There is. When I was a campaigner in the UK, many people would tell me that they were very keen to take up cycling, but for one reason or another.

However, the suppressed demand for conditions in which children are safe on the streets is very much greater. This is what any campaigner who wants to see mass cycling return to the UK ought to be campaigning about. Get parents on your side and there will be a mass move to change infrastructure and improve conditions.

I can see the responses from a certain element of the cycling community in the UK. i.e. those who are concerned about being "forced" to use sub-standard shared-use paths next to the road. However, this is all part of the problem. Sub-standard facilities are of no use to anyone. Not only are they no good for confident adults to cycle on, but they will also never provide the level of subjective safety required for British parents to think their children are safe on a bike. I've seen many examples of what happens in Britain. Planners think that if they provide a couple of hundred metres of astonishingly bad quality shared use next to a school that they've actually done something. People afterwards ask why it is that such facilities are not used. The answer is very simple: they are not usable. The quality is much too low. Tokenism isn't the answer.

It's a grave mistake to think that low quality off road provision "for slow and inexperienced cyclists" is all that is needed, and that "fast cyclists" will always be better off on the road. If separate infrastructure is not good enough for a confident adult to use then it's not good enough for kids to ride to school on either.

The differences between British and Dutch streets are very easy to see. They're actually almost exactly the same as the differences between Dutch streets in the 1970s and now. i.e. British streets now resemble Dutch streets 40 years ago. It's not actually all that expensive to achieve such a transition - it simply takes a consistent policy over years.

Road casualties in the Netherlands have dropped steeply, even as cycling rates have risen. Now approximately 720 people per year die on Dutch roads. 180 of them are cyclists, and 22 of those are children. The cycling figures may sound high, but they are in part a reflection of the number of cycle journeys made. The Dutch now experience an overall risk which is less than a quarter of that in 1973, and for children it's now a twentieth of that in 1973. Dutch cyclists are now the safest in the world. Of course, the campaign goes on to reduce the figures.

Meanwhile, British roads have become safer for drivers, but they have not achieved such good results for vulnerable road users. It would only take about fifteen years to turn this around, following which even better plans can be made.

Between 1972 and 2013, fatalities on the roads dropped
dramatically in the Netherlands. Child fatalities have
reduced to just 2% of the previous level.

2014 update
Since this blog post was written, Dutch roads have continued to get safer. In 2013, there were a total of 570 road deaths in the Netherlands, just nine of whom were under 15. Five were child cyclists, four were child pedestrians. Even one death may be seen as too many, but this is still startling progress over the peak in the early 1970s.

How success was achieved
Note that this great success in improved safety was achieved with children still cycling en-masse, and without distractions such as bicycle helmets. The improvement in safety came due to improving the infrastructure which people use. The Netherlands now has an extensive grid of high quality cycling infrastructure which covers the nation. This doesn't only serve children, but all cyclists and cycling is safer in the Netherlands than in any other nation.

In 1989, "Stop de Kindermoord" changed its name to "Kinderen Voorrang" ("Priority for children"). In 2001 they became part of the larger road safety campaign, 3VO / Veilig Verkeer Nederland ("Safe Traffic Netherlands") who continue to campaign for lower road deaths. The statue in the photo is "Fietsles" ("cycling lesson"), by Kees Verkade. It's in Groningen, here.

Do you want to know more about the history of cycling in the Netherlands, read more stories tagged with history and the articles linked from here, particularly The Dutch Master Plan 1999. There are also many stories about school travel. Also another post referred to current work of Veilig Verkeer Nederland.

I recommend also reading responses to this post by Karl McCracken, Dave Warnock and NicoleP.