Could you be arrested for allowing your 5’th grade child to ride her bike one mile to school? That certainly seems crazy as we try to encourage active life styles for our kids. That certainly seems crazy as we try to promote safe routes to school programs. That certainly seems crazy as we talk of an obesity epidemic amongst our children. But that is what police in Elizabethton Tennessee are threatening.
Teresa Tryon said, “On August 25th my 10 year daughter arrived home via police officer, requested to speak to me on the front porch of my home. The officer informed me that in his ‘judgement’ it was unsafe for my daughter to ride her bike to school.”
Ms Tryon called the mayor’s office and the chief of police office in order to determine what laws she was breaking by allowing her daughter to ride her bike to school. Her daughter’s route to school was reasonably safe.
Major Verran of the police department returned Ms Tryon’s call. She said he told me, "He had spoke with the District Attorney’s office who advised that until the officer can speak with Child Protective Services that if I allow my daughter to ride/walk to school I will be breaking the law and treated accordingly.
She asked, “What law she would be breaking to which the answer was ‘child neglect’”.
Ms Tryon confirm with Major Verran that her daughter was indeed breaking no laws at any level, but it was Ms Tryon who was breaking the law by allowing her daughter to ride/walk to school. Even though it only takes her daughter 7 - 9 minutes to bicycle to school, she is expected to ride the bus.
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What the hell is wrong with our country these days?
I rode my bike to school in 5th/6th grade all of the time. My parents wouldn’t have been happy if I wasn’t with a group of friends though, in case something happened.
I walked to school and walked home from school on a regular basis when I was in grade school which was about 1 mile or so. No wonder we are the fattest country in the world.
i walked/rode/skated to school from 5th grade on until i had a car…mostly skated when it was nice cause my bike got stolen from a school function once so i didnt want to take it again
Yeah, I used to walk to school in 1st and second grade (1/4 mile), and then again in 6 on up (1 mile) Second through 5th was in another school 5 miles away with 2 huge hills and only the main road to get there.
Unless there is something odd about this route, I don’t see what the issue is.
Bicycles are quite a bit more dangerous than just about every other form of transportation. I see kids on bikes swerving in and out of lanes all the time.
Of course, the real root of the issue is the average idiot driver in a big, heavy, steel vehicle, barreling at 40-60 MPH and texting. Thats not going to change any time soon, so I vote no. To ride a bike on public roads with any real traffic, you better be very aware of your surroundings, which most kids are not.
CHIEF MATT BAILEY, Elizabethton Police Department: “We would be derelict in our duty if we didn’t say, 'Hey, we’ve got some issues about her safety.”
Last Wednesday, an Elizabethton Police officer put his car in park and waited on the school bus parked in front of him.
BAILEY: “The child goes into oncoming traffic, and goes around the school bus, and around his vehicle.”
Chief Matt Bailey says the officer watched a car stop to avoid running her over. The next day, the officer saw that girl again.
BAILEY: “He sees the child crest the hill, she starts over the top of the hill on Cedar Avenue, a car comes from behind her and has to swerve over.”
Bailey says this time the officer stopped the child, put her inside his cruiser, and drove her home.
So two days in a row he watches a 10 year old causing traffic to dodge around her because she obviously doesn’t know how to properly share the road with traffic, and brings her home to let mom know, “hey, she’s not safe riding unsupervised”.
This is why I don’t want kids… I feel I would be in jail for allowing my child to grow and be exposed to things like dirt, playgrounds, slides, riding their bike, bleeding from falling off their bike, and other things that kids now a days just don’t do.
