Cars crowding out children's play - BBC report

[Poi E]

Parents can't win. Let your kid out of your sight and something happens: you're a bad parent. Don't let them out your sight/ keep em indoors: they get obese: you're a bad parent.

It seems that parents are increasingly treating kids as some sort of fragile objects rather than as little people that need to learn about life.

 

[Spion]

People don't want to "manage", they want to make life easier. If people were happy to "manage" we would still be living in caves.

I think that's a wise observation (much as it surprises me that it comes from you, Giles)

 

[_angel_]

It seems that parents are increasingly treating kids as some sort of fragile objects rather than as little people that need to learn about life.

Because in the old days it was okay to let your kids out and people realised accidents happen, now todays blame culture always means 'blame the parents' for accidents that happen. The finger is pointed, people go on about calling social services for things that wouldn't have happened generations ago.

Like I said, I think parents have it harder than any other generation. Increasingly both parents are expected/ have to work fulltime yet they're also responsible for their kids behaviour.

 

[_angel_]

People don't want to "manage", they want to make life easier. If people were happy to "manage" we would still be living in caves.

Flooding problems are easily avoided by using gravel for your front parking area, so the rainwater is still absorbed into the ground, rather than tarmac.

Anyway, people's needs change: at one time, big houses had small bedrooms at the top for servants, and coalholes, and pantries. Now they don't, and those spaces have been used for other things.

When there were fewer cars, you could park outside your house. Now you can't, but people want to, so they convert their small front gardens into parking. It's their house, and I don't have a problem with it, really. In fact, if my house had a little front garden/yard like this, I would probably do the same.

Also, not all of these houses with 3 or 4 cars outside are occupied by a family. They may be occupied by 5 or 6 adults, some of whom drive (one car each).

Giles..

More women going out to work prob accounts for more cars, grown up children living at home longer because they can't afford to move other reasons.

That and the growth of house shares (esp among students)

 

[Yossarian]

Who remembers playing outside with friends who live nearby on long summer evenings after school as the happiest days of their lives?

Knockdown ginger, chain he, building ramps for BMX's, war games, scrumping apples from a neighbours garden, playing football, climbing trees, making rope swings, having fights, checking out abandoned houses... well at least these are some of the things I remember doing.

I remember the game where one of us would run out into the road from between two parked cars to shit up the driver of an oncoming car...

 

[Poi E]

both parents are expected/ have to work fulltime yet they're also responsible for their kids behaviour.

The way it was for my family 30 years ago. Did my own thing, got a few gropes from old fellas, knocked by a couple of cars and had a fuckload of fun. Are social services really that intrusive? Do neighbours really care that much?

 

[_angel_]

The way it was for my family 30 years ago. Did my own thing, got a few gropes from old fellas, knocked by a couple of cars and had a fuckload of fun. Are social services really that intrusive? Do neighbours really care that much?

Depends where you are. Altho my mum and dad were highly protective of me..

 

[kyser_soze]

So anyone got RTA stats for kids between now and the 1970s? That might be a good place to start comparing, rather than a BBC report. I'd suggest that this is about perception of danger, rather than actual increases in danger, and also the increasing tendency of councils to put up 'No ball game' signs, estates to be built without any green space in front of houses etc

I grew up in the 70s with crossbows, Black Widow catapaults and air rifles for 7 years olds, so sorry I don't buy that it's purely down to cars. Parent's are more scared of everything these days.

 

[pogofish]

I grew up in the 70s with crossbows, Black Widow catapaults and air rifles for 7 years olds, so sorry I don't buy that it's purely down to cars. Parent's are more scared of everything these days.


So anyone got RTA stats for kids between now and the 1970s?

Same here, plus motorbikes & quarries were perfect for pushbike assault courses! I'd also suggest there has been a very significant change in the way kids play/interact as well. A chicken/egg situation of course as you might well be able to argue the external risks have all been part of the reason things changed?

Dunno about England but the overall trend in Scotland has been steadilly downwards since the mid 60s. Although there have been some year-on upward blips from time to time. I understand this last year has seen a prtticularly big one. Which is probably why we are seeing this kind of reporting?

 

[kyser_soze]

You also need to take into account the rise in traffic. If there are 3 times more vehicles on the roads, then a non-change growth curve would show 3 times as many accidents and road deaths. Anything higher would suggest more danger, anything lower less.

You also have to factor in the 'safe to play' factor - there are some kids who no matter how often you drill road safety into them they still behave like fucking idiots near roads; teenagers are especially bad for this and from my observations (and personal memories of adolescence) are more likely to place themselves in high risk situations.

 

[pogofish]

You also have to factor in the 'safe to play' factor - there are some kids who no matter how often you

Yes & there has also been a big change in where they do it as well IMO. Today they seem determined to be as public as possible when in the past we knew to keep it out of sight of adults & even many of our peers!

 

[kyser_soze]

I always look at it this way - we had road, railway, building site and farm safety stuff rammed into kids in my town from the age of about 5 - mainly because there were loads of active farms, 3 major building sites and a railway line which most of the town used as a convenient shortcut at some time or another.

So when a kid got killed on the railway track - in exactly the way demonstrated to us in a safety film, by waving a metal pole into the overhead power cables - the big response was 'His own fault'. Didn't happen again tho...

 

[Pingu]

I always look at it this way - we had road, railway, building site and farm safety stuff rammed into kids in my town from the age of about 5 - mainly because there were loads of active farms, 3 major building sites and a railway line which most of the town used as a convenient shortcut at some time or another.

So when a kid got killed on the railway track - in exactly the way demonstrated to us in a safety film, by waving a metal pole into the overhead power cables - the big response was 'His own fault'. Didn't happen again tho...

did the kids parents sue the railway for failing to provide adequate security?

when I was a kid there was a big building site by us, kid died after climbing a fence and drowning in a deep excavation - the response - well he shouldnt have been tehre in the first place.


move on to a few years ago. kid climbs two fences festooned with "danger keep out" type signs, injures himslef and parents sue.

its shows a big change in attitudes between the generations and goes back to selfishnees\lazyness\whats in it for me type attitudes that seem to be common.

 

[kyser_soze]

did the kids parents sue the railway for failing to provide adequate security?

when I was a kid there was a big building site by us, kid died after climbing a fence and drowning in a deep excavation - the response - well he shouldnt have been tehre in the first place.


move on to a few years ago. kid climbs two fences festooned with "danger keep out" type signs, injures himslef and parents sue.

its shows a big change in attitudes between the generations and goes back to selfishnees\lazyness\whats in it for me type attitudes that seem to be common.

Course not - this was before the days of people suing people for their own or other's stupidity...

 

[cybertect]

So anyone got RTA stats for kids between now and the 1970s? That might be a good place to start comparing, rather than a BBC report. I'd suggest that this is about perception of danger, rather than actual increases in danger, and also the increasing tendency of councils to put up 'No ball game' signs, estates to be built without any green space in front of houses etc

Roads have always been unsafe places for children. Well before the appearance of the motor vehicle, the risk of being struck by horses and other vehicles were a very significant hazard to urban children.

Stats from 1994 to 2005 from the DFT show that child pedestrian casualties in road accidents nearly halved in the period.

FWIW, the overall accidental death rate for children under 15 the 1990s was approximately one quarter of that in the 1960s and one tenth of that at the beginning of the century [source].

Road accident deaths across all ages dropped from 8,302 in 1971 to 3,501 in 1998 [source]

 

[Idaho]

This is all chicken and egg stuff. The rate of accidents has dropped in the last 20 years, as has the number of kids playing out in the street.

 

[moose]

That's cos their parents are busy stuffing them into cars to take them places. so many times you hear people saying "Ooh, we're having a baby - I'll have to get a car".

 

[Poi E]

Roads have always been unsafe places for children. Well before the appearance of the motor vehicle, the risk of being struck by horses and other vehicles were a very significant hazard to urban children.

Stats from 1994 to 2005 from the DFT show that child pedestrian casualties in road accidents nearly halved in the period.

FWIW, the overall accidental death rate for children under 15 the 1990s was approximately one quarter of that in the 1960s and one tenth of that at the beginning of the century [source].

Road accident deaths across all ages dropped from 8,302 in 1971 to 3,501 in 1998 [source]

Good stats. So parents, kick yer young 'uns outdoors to stop them becoming palid, petulent and porky.

 

[Idaho]

That's cos their parents are busy stuffing them into cars to take them places. so many times you hear people saying "Ooh, we're having a baby - I'll have to get a car".

So nothing to do with the disappearance of local shops and the fact that buses often don't let buggies on?

 

[Spion]

Course not - this was before the days of people suing people for their own or other's stupidity...

deregulation of the legal profession is at the root of this. If anyone knows what law change it was exactly, I'd like to know. Early 90s I think

 

[kyser_soze]

When solicitors were allowed to represent (YO! REP-RESENTING Y'ALL...sorry, too much Wire) in court, and the rise of the no win/no fee settlement. Mid 90s wunnit?

Roads have always been unsafe places for children. Well before the appearance of the motor vehicle, the risk of being struck by horses and other vehicles were a very significant hazard to urban children.

Stats from 1994 to 2005 from the DFT show that child pedestrian casualties in road accidents nearly halved in the period.

FWIW, the overall accidental death rate for children under 15 the 1990s was approximately one quarter of that in the 1960s and one tenth of that at the beginning of the century [source].

Road accident deaths across all ages dropped from 8,302 in 1971 to 3,501 in 1998 [source]

Well that saved me a whole lotta running about, ta

Idaho - would you say that the number of kids playing in The Street has decreased in line with the increase in levels of traffic? Basically I think the BBC report, and whomever did the spurious study that lay behind it, is a load of bollocks.

 

[cybertect]

The report calls for a hotline to identify anti-social adults who obstruct children from playing outside.

What, adults like the Police and local councils seeking ASBOs to stop children playing in the street?

Police swoop on children's hopscotch game [Somerset]

ASBO for playing kerbie [Scotland]

Children in trouble for hopscotch [West Midlands]

That'll be fun. Kids get an ASBO for hopscotch. Neighbours get an ASBO for complaining about them in the first place...

 

[kyser_soze]

That'll be fun. Kids get an ASBO for hopscotch. Neighbours get an ASBO for complaining...

Hey, at least it's even handed

 

[editor]

Road accident deaths across all ages dropped from 8,302 in 1971 to 3,501 in 1998 [source]

And, more recently, Official Statistics Show an Increase in UK Road Deaths.

06/10/2004, the UK Department for Transport has published National Statistics on road casualties for 2003. The report contains final figures giving detailed information on the number of people killed and injured on the roads in Great Britain in 2003, based on information about accidents reported to the police.

Key points are:

3,508 people were killed on Britain’s roads in 2003, 2 per cent more than in 2002. The number of people seriously injured fell to 33,707, 6 per cent lower than in 2002. Total casualties in 2003 were 290,607, 4 percent fewer than in 2002;

Bring in the 20mph urban limits with doubled fines and maybe that figure will start to really fall.

 

[editor]

And, even more recently:

#The number of people killed in road accidents fell by 1 per cent from 3,201 in 2005 to 3,172 in 2006. 31,845 people were killed or seriously injured in 2006, 1 per cent fewer than in 2005. There were 258,404 road casualties in Great Britain in 2006, 5 per cent less than in 2005.

There were 189,161 road accidents involving personal injury in 2006, 5 per cent fewer than in 2005. Of these, 27,872 accidents involved death or serious injury, less than 1 per cent fewer than in 2005 (27,942).

The number of deaths among car users in 2006 was 1,612, 4 per cent less than in the previous year. The number seriously injured fell by 2 per cent to 12,642. Total casualties among car users were 171,000, 4 per cent lower than 2005. Provisional traffic estimates indicate a 1 per cent rise in car and taxi traffic over the period.
http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/statistic...ns/accidents/casualtiesmr/rcgbmainresults2006

31,845 people killed or seriously injured sure is a disturbing figure.

 

[Giles]

So nothing to do with the disappearance of local shops and the fact that buses often don't let buggies on?

Like so many other things, its the "tyranny of the majority" again: Once a critical mass of people have cars, then they can drive to big supermarkets, meaning that there aren't enough people left to use the local shops for many of those shops to stay viable. This then stuffs the people without cars.

You see this with many things: if 60% or more of people want something, or just start doing something, then that's fine, except that it can disadvantage the minority who then can't do things their way.

Giles..

 

[untethered]

People don't want to "manage", they want to make life easier. If people were happy to "manage" we would still be living in caves.

You're presupposing that all development is progress.

Humans are creative and constantly want to try new things. However, some new things are harmful, or harmful on a certain scale.

It's quite understandable that humans might want to build a motorised vehicle. But, frankly, it's quite incomprehensible that as a society we haven't yet worked out that when you have 60 million people in a place the size of Britain, not everyone can have their own two-tonne metal portable home to take them wherever they need to go and all the supporting infrastructure that makes that possible.

 

[Idaho]

Idaho - would you say that the number of kids playing in The Street has decreased in line with the increase in levels of traffic? Basically I think the BBC report, and whomever did the spurious study that lay behind it, is a load of bollocks.

No kids play out on my street. It's bumper-to-bumper parked cars and more cars driving up it regularly. There just isn't any physical space on the road.

Round the corner there is a street were the kids do play out. This road only has houses down one side, and only has parking down one side. Also most of the houses have drives in which to park the cars. There is much more space and much better visibility of oncoming cars. Also there is just less traffic.

 

[untethered]

Unsurprisingly in these modern times, along with a drastically-degraded environment for natural, spontaneous play for children comes a whole industry to "facilitate" play in a more scientific manner.

"Play" has become a specialism within landscape architecture / urban design. There are play consultants that go into schools to teach children how to play. There are even organisations to help people run street parties on their own streets, as if an arbitrary collection of a few dozen adults couldn't work it out for themselves.

So to contrive an example, a property developer will decide to throw up a huge out-of-town shopping centre which pretty much mandates that people must drive there. Local shops in the surrounding area go out of business. People drive more miles to get their basic provisions and the environment becomes one in which safe and spontaneous urban play is increasingly risky.

Then the "play consultants" get a job with the developers to build a play area within the shopping centre, in part by pointing to research that shows that children don't have enough opportunities to play at home.

 

[jusali]

Our neighbours have 2 estate cars and a van and both their kids are under 10. They drive everywhere, even to the local shop! Their kids aren't allowed out unless they're with reponsible adults and their kids were surprised to see we allowed mess and posters on the wall in our house

Their parents see us as an oddity the composting operation confounded them no end, they want us to chop down a tree in the garden because the leaves fall on their lawn, one gets the distinct impression we bring down the tone.

Most houses on our street, Terraces and semi's have 3 cars per household and 80% of front gardens are paved for parking. We have a front garden still which has a little bike shed in which confounds the neighbours, cycling is for losers apparently? We live in a aspiring middle class area where money and image talks!

No wonder the kids can't play outside they'll get their £40 sketchers dirty!