Posted by Jock on April 09, 2008 at 12:44:48 from 86.140.160.175 user Jock.
In Reply to: Re: Cotton Wool Kids posted by Elizabeth on April 09, 2008 at 02:27:27:
Poor kids....try to imagine who you would be today if you hadn't spent time all alone exploring the outside world, wherever you lived. I remember hours and hours some days, with my mind always working while I walked to the park, rode my bike, climbed a tree or just sat in the grass...
I absolutely agree. But there is reason for this madness. In the pursuit of the illusory goal of 'personal mobility' we have made the urban environment a prison. We have refashioned lives and communities around the needs of the motor car and denied our children the right to roam. For generations, such exploring was considered an essential part of growing up.
But I don't blame parents. In the UK, the total number of casualties from all kinds road accidents is in the order of 300,000 each year. This is 0.5% of a total population of some 60,000,000. Now consider that calculated on the basis of distance travelled, journeys by bicycle are 11 times more likely to lead to death and journeys on foot, 13 times than journeys by car.
I attribute at least part of the worsening behaviour of our elder youths in town centres to the caged animal lives that many of them lead when they were smaller. There is an alternative way of designing our urban space, but it needs courage to admit that our car-first planning policies were a ghastly mistake.