Bicycle Safety

Sitting on the front porch rocker just the other day, when a kid came by riding his bicycle. From my view, he appeared to be wearing a helmet, elbow and knee pads.

Then I noticed approximately 20 feet behind him an automobile-- his Momma, obviously the kids wingman, was following behind him in her car with the hazard lights flashing. This explained all the safety gear.

Boy, the times sure have changed.

We rode our bikes with reckless abandon, as if we had just stolen them; alas, it was our first set of wheels and freedom!

The way we did it was like this: First, you had to be dressed accordingly: barefooted, shirtless, and wearing shorts. Ball caps were optional. There were two type of crashes--planned and unplanned. These were the halcyon days of Evel Knievel so there were a lot of deliberate on purpose (planned) bike jumps that resulted in crashes. The unplanned were more severe, because you had less preparation time.

Regardless of the type, you end up bleeding from damn near everywhere, then an adrenaline inspired run home (if you had no broken bones) only to have your Momma tell you “don’t come in this house bleeding I just mopped!”

A minute later here she comes with a life saving bottle of Merthiolate to prevent your death while reminding you to ride better next time. It normally sounded like "Bet you wont do that again!"

For the record, I'm against Bike crashes and Merthiolate, but I digress. Back to the kid riding on my street.
Mom following in a crash vehicle is probably a pretty good idea, truth be told. There’s always room for process improvement.
But I keep pondering the scene, and I wonder to myself what’s going to happen when this kid starts organized sports or dating. Is Mom going to be right behind him to pick up the pieces for a job interview? Our street is a busy street, most days, and people speed all too often. The residents constantly complain about it on the residential Facebook page. Perhaps I'm wrong about Mom and the crash car. There were a lot more kids on bikes when I was growing up. Dodging cars was an acquired skill. Moms remained either at work or at home guarding the merthiolate bottle.

I watch them slowly go out of sight, knowing they will return. A few minutes later here they come, and both bike rider and Mom wave to me. I wave back. I am convinced he got back home sound as a pound.
Hope he never goes to War.

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