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Kids need freedom, too

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Re: Kids need freedom, too

#231

Post by jedberg »

vinay427 wrote: post #223
jedberg wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then again, having your kids break a bone won‘t bankrupt your family for life over here… That's the key. I've noticed in places with universal health care, they tend to have more fun playgrounds. Because the owner knows they won't get sued for medical expenses. That applies in general in places with universal healthcare. My friends who live in those places told me their car and home insurance are much cheaper than…

To be fair, in many places with universal coverage of health insurance, the owner doesn't know they won't get sued for medical expenses. The European countries that have often been mentioned here (Germany, Switzerland, etc.) most often use a system of private insurers with deductibles and co-pays that patients must pay, although the minimum level of coverage tends to be far more protective than in the US. Medical exp…

Well, they know the lawsuit would be quite limited. If an uninsured person in the US gets hurt, there could be nearly unlimited liability.

Also, my understanding (although it could be wrong) is that insurance companies in the EU can't sue people to recover medical costs, so at worst you're on the hook for their deductible but you don't have to worry about the insurance company coming for the rest like you do in the USA.

Re: Kids need freedom, too

#232

Post by WalterBright »

rmah wrote: post #204
CalRobert wrote: post #154

It's great to allow your kids to take risks, and we do this with our own as much as we can (they're 1 and 3, so "within reason" is still doing some heavy lifting. I pick ticks off of them now and then and patch up their share of bruises). But fundamentally, what I want most is to be somewhere my kids can ride bikes or walk alone to school, to friends, to the shop, etc. from the age of 7 or so. As best I can tell that…

In NYC, over a million kids of all ages walk, skateboard, bike, kick-scooter, or take the bus and subway to school every day. Little kids as young as 10 take the subway alone to/from school. Well, really they travel in packs, but still. Even in the dangerous Big Apple, the number of serious accidents or criminal incidents while going to/from school is just a handful a year. When I was young and growing up in the burb…

> I don't really understand some people's extreme risk aversion today.

Evolution has wired us to be constantly looking for risk. If we don't find danger, we'll invent it.

As we remove the riskiest risks, the bar on what we're willing to spend and sacrifice to address the next level of risks goes higher and higher.

Then there's the press which lives by sensationalizing every bad thing that happens, leading us to grossly exaggerate risk levels in our society.

Re: Kids need freedom, too

#233

Post by mulmen »

mips_avatar wrote: post #198
mulmen wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think this is an absolute. I grew up in a neighborhood that provided what you describe in Idaho. Both my brothers are raising their kids in an environment like you describe. I live in one in Seattle now. It’s not cheap in a city but it’s not unheard of in the US.

I don’t think Seattle does a great job of this either. The eastside is a suburban sprawl, and most of the parents I know in Seattle are too afraid of the homeless to let their kids go to parks/stores nearby alone.

The East side isn’t Seattle. If you want to include suburbs you also need to include Shoreline and Burien.

It depends a lot on your neighborhood. Mine is nice and I see kids running around the neighborhood regularly.

As I mentioned this is definitely a thing in Idaho. My brothers and sister all have families and live in areas where kids can have freedom in the neighborhood but away from home.

Re: Kids need freedom, too

#234

Post by tesseract »

mips_avatar wrote: post #200
retrohomearcade wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of kids ride their bikes to my daughters elementary school, where we live in the United States. Safe small towns with functional sidewalks, for kids to ride bikes on as necessary, still happily exist in some places in our nation.

Where you live can the kids get to anything other than single family housing? Because there are definitely suburbs in the US with low enough traffic to be safe, but they don’t allow important freedoms like biking to schools/libraries/shops

Yeah I think this is common. Where I grew up I could easily bike to some other kids' houses or to school, or a mile or two around the neighborhood for exercise, but other destinations I would have been interested in (the library, the local ice cream shop, the hardware store, parks other than the school playground) were basically impossible to reach due to distance, traffic/safety, or both.

Re: Kids need freedom, too

#235

Post by panopticon »

WalterBright wrote: post #232
rmah wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In NYC, over a million kids of all ages walk, skateboard, bike, kick-scooter, or take the bus and subway to school every day. Little kids as young as 10 take the subway alone to/from school. Well, really they travel in packs, but still. Even in the dangerous Big Apple, the number of serious accidents or criminal incidents while going to/from school is just a handful a year. When I was young and growing up in the burb…

> I don't really understand some people's extreme risk aversion today. Evolution has wired us to be constantly looking for risk. If we don't find danger, we'll invent it. As we remove the riskiest risks, the bar on what we're willing to spend and sacrifice to address the next level of risks goes higher and higher. Then there's the press which lives by sensationalizing every bad thing that happens, leading us to gross…

> Then there's the press which lives by sensationalizing every bad thing that happens, leading us to grossly exaggerate risk levels in our society.

Humans are really bad at assessing risk. Parents are more likely to be afraid of a stranger kidnapping their child when their child is far more likely to die on the car ride to school.

Which is sad when you think about how suburbs are designed to make people feel safe even though their road designs tend to be extremely dangerous.

Re: Kids need freedom, too

#236

Post by throwaway0a5e »

mips_avatar wrote: post #195
mulmen wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Cycling needs good stewardship. The biggest problem with cycling adoption is “cyclists”. My hyperlocal blog has a guy that makes me want to throw my bicycle in the bay just so I’m not associated with him. And I love riding my bike. Cycling needs a “you meet the nicest people on a Honda” moment. E-bikes are a great opportunity for Americans to rediscover motorcycles but unfortunately cities are willing to all…

I think each near collision with a car radicalizes cyclists a bit. While cycling you build up experiences where cars prioritize speed over your safety. Most “annoying cyclists” I’ve met I feel like are arguing for the right things but they have a lot of bitterness.

There's some minority of people who are just jerks on the road. Drivers that don't account for other road users. Cyclists who blow through intersections forcing cars and pedestrians to take evasive action. Pedestrians that expect wheeled vehicles to defy the laws of physics on their behalf.

Beyond this minority damn near every road user (regardless of car vs bike vs pedestrian) behaves perfectly reasonably if you understand what they're trying to do. Once you understand what the other participants are trying to do things become very predictable and safe. The road user who is constantly having problems is probably doing it wrong themselves in a "man who smells crap all day should look under his own shoe" sort of way.

Crappy cyclists make crappy pedestrians make crappy drivers.

I've biked walked and driven at various points in my life. If you understand what everyone else is doing and choose your own actions to mesh with this you basically never have problems with other road users. You can blow through intersections on a bike. You can jaywalk. You can ignore turn specific arrows. You can do all these things safely. But you gotta have good situational awareness exercise good judgement about the time and the place you choose to do them or you will often be in conflict with other road users.

Re: Kids need freedom, too

#237

Post by caturopath »

mulmen wrote: post #176
mips_avatar wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think cycling is one of those things where it’s important to do it in spite of Canamerica being such a bad place for it, every person cycling normalizes it and pushes indirectly for positive change. Of course it’s also important to directly push for change in city government.

I agree. Cycling needs good stewardship. The biggest problem with cycling adoption is “cyclists”. My hyperlocal blog has a guy that makes me want to throw my bicycle in the bay just so I’m not associated with him. And I love riding my bike. Cycling needs a “you meet the nicest people on a Honda” moment. E-bikes are a great opportunity for Americans to rediscover motorcycles but unfortunately cities are willing to all…

> The biggest problem with cycling adoption is “cyclists”.

Most like probably number 3 or 4. The "cyclists" are annoying and silly, but on the other hand they aren't literally killing many people.

Re: Kids need freedom, too

#238

Post by retrohomearcade »

mips_avatar wrote: post #200
retrohomearcade wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of kids ride their bikes to my daughters elementary school, where we live in the United States. Safe small towns with functional sidewalks, for kids to ride bikes on as necessary, still happily exist in some places in our nation.

Where you live can the kids get to anything other than single family housing? Because there are definitely suburbs in the US with low enough traffic to be safe, but they don’t allow important freedoms like biking to schools/libraries/shops

We live on Main street in a single family home in a nice moderately touristy fairly inexpensive mountain town in the north-east.

Main street is generally thriving, with the preschool, elementary school, middle-high school, library, and town park/common down said Main street. (The library is one block off.)

Mixed together among the core mile and a half or so stretch is a decent collection of retail establishments (including 2 gas stations, a few coffee shops local and chain, restaurants local and chain, doctors offices, post office, auto mechanics, the now ubiquitous Dollar General, a liquor store, an ole' time hardware store, and a couple good ice cream places), single family homes, a church, a police station/opera house/townhall, and some hotels and motels local and chain.

Side streets with single family homes, and some New England style multi-unit three stories are on both sides of Main street, where the river allows, with a small trailer park mixed in.

There is certainly traffic on Main street, including log trucks, but with a 30 mph speed limit, and lots of crosswalks where people will generally stop for you (the law says you should), it's pretty human friendly.

I will admit it's in many ways a throwback to the way things used to be...

Re: Kids need freedom, too

#239

Post by indymike »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #205
heavyset_go wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are there any examples of this happening? https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/us/orlando-6-year-old-arr... https://www.cbsnews.com/news/maryland-police-5-year-old-boy-... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEDTPxpjDhk

The top two might be good examples, but the YouTube link says the kid was punching a teacher, which is a good example of what I meant by punting that to someone with better legal resources than me (if I am a worker at the school).

It is an 8 year old kid. The fact we're worried so much about legal resources is the problem.

Re: Kids need freedom, too

#240

Post by nanis »

mulmen wrote: post #176
mips_avatar wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think cycling is one of those things where it’s important to do it in spite of Canamerica being such a bad place for it, every person cycling normalizes it and pushes indirectly for positive change. Of course it’s also important to directly push for change in city government.

I agree. Cycling needs good stewardship. The biggest problem with cycling adoption is “cyclists”. My hyperlocal blog has a guy that makes me want to throw my bicycle in the bay just so I’m not associated with him. And I love riding my bike. Cycling needs a “you meet the nicest people on a Honda” moment. E-bikes are a great opportunity for Americans to rediscover motorcycles but unfortunately cities are willing to all…

> E-bikes are a great opportunity

Until you round the corner on a sidewalk and narrowly avoid collision with a 7 year old on an electric bicycle.

I lived in Denmark for a bit in the 80s and I don't know how it is there these days, but back then, the police pulled you over and ticketed you for the tiniest infractions on a bicycle.

I can't imagine 1/10th of that level of enforcement in the NYC metro area without full scale rioting.

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