> When I grew up before then, kids were generally allowed to roam wherever they wanted unsupervised, as long as they were home in time for dinner.
Me too.
With that being said, as a parent now, the #1 fear I have with my children playing outside unsupervised isn't kidnapping or violence or anything that would appear on Unsolved Mysteries or America's Most Wanted.
It's cars. My fear is cars.
My boys are 7 & 5 years old and they are both very inattentive. No matter how hard I try to put the fear of the road into them, they both have a tendency to mindlessly wander into it without looking. My older one is autistic, so I'm sure that has something to do with it, but my younger one is not and he is even worse.
I live in a suburb in Maryland named Columbia. Its residential areas were thoughtfully planned-out with very few "busy roads" running through them, but I regularly see people (teenagers?) flooring 50+mph down sleepy tree-lined 25mph streets.
I have no doubt in my mind that, if left unattended, both of my boys would be run over by one of these insane drivers within a week.
Edit: Yes, we and others have complained to the city. Yes, there are speed cameras and the like, but this behavior has only gotten worse post-COVID.
It's an interesting point and actually feeds back into the America's Most Wanted issues. As America has gotten more focused on cars for the majority of transportation the neighborhood has broken down, people who never walk in their community never meet their neighbors and it's much easier to cultivate fear about neighbors you've never met along with being harder to trust those mystery neighbors to intervene if they see something wrong.
There was a saying "It takes a village to raise a child" but in modern America each family is closer to being an island to themselves trying to raise their children - there almost certainly are a dozen or so other parents you've met at parks and other things that you trust but those parents might live quite far away from you.
Living in a car oriented culture comes with serious societal issues.
Interestingly, the pandemic altered this briefly in my neighborhood. Seemingly out of nowhere, for a few months in 2020 - our streets were filled regularly with walkers, dogs and children. There were new face-to-face conversations with people who had lived in the same neighborhood for over 7-10 years. There were driveway get togethers, cul-de-sac firepits and a renewed sense of community that went deeper than asking for a contractor recommendation or a cup of sugar. While the pandemic was horrible in numerous ways, this was one side-effect that was truly positive for my small piece of the world and has resulted in stronger, new friendships that I hope to continue.
In retrospect, could we have done this through social events or aggressive reach-outs - sure. But the apathy and distraction provided by using a car to go somewhere was a constant saboteur.
Im not disagreeing about cars but i want to point out you can say the same thing about the invention of AC and the washing machine. Almost any at home technology that replaced communal work has had this affect.
Not really seeing how they're comparable-- vastly different levels of influence in terms of promoting isolation. While true that lower levels of tech/development promote more communal labor, there's much more to social relations than that-- and modes of transportation, along with subsidizing the suburbanization of the country have a much greater impact.
Im sure that sounds odd to you if you are younger but go to any small town and talk to people about how AC changed the swimming hole of the 50s or the washing machine changed the way housewives socialized. The car reformed neighborhoods and commerce for sure, but so did several other private in home technologies. I mean the television fundamentally changed child development. And before it the average person in america went to the theater 1-2 times per week. You likely just live like a fish in water with them now and never knew how it was.
The car was part of a total private technology revolution that fundamentally reduced socialization for work and play.
If you can physically drive 50+ mph down a street signed for 25 mph then whoever built the road may have been thoughtful but they certainly weren't thinking about safety.
Signs and warnings rank very low in the hierachy of engineering controls.
The safest option would be to physically prevent vehicles able to travel at greater than 15mph from being in areas with children.
The next safest would be to redesign the street to prevent high-powered vehicles from being able to travel at greater than 15mph.
> If you can physically drive 50+ mph down a street signed for 25 mph then whoever built the road may have been thoughtful but they certainly weren't thinking about safety.
but sadly most subdivision builders like to make nice straight roads, which means that one of the more effective tools to control speed (having the road turn, or snake) won't work. That leaves having frequent intersections with either stops or roundabouts.
Stop sign planning usually says to avoid 4 way stops and to give give preference to one of the streets (usually the busier), meaning that if those are used one street at any interspection will probably be one with few stops, allowing cars to build up speed.
Roundabouts (preferably with a physical center median) are the right choice for residential streets, but in most of the US they are still considered "weird", so subdivision developers don't make much use of them.
My town, which is pretty lenient on parking in general, has a rule that an RV may not stay in the street for more than 24 hours. An oversize pickup truck would do the job though and not be subject to the same time limits.
In some neighbourhoods in Copenhagen, the streets suddenly narrow to only allow 1 car to pass (in a two way street) with a small bump, which is very effective from my perspective as a driver.
Ironically, I live in the notoriously high-crime city to your north, with kids basically the same age. The older one has free reign of our neighborhood at this point. We live in a walkable neighborhood with streets narrow enough that cars can't pick up any significant speed. Everyone agrees that Columbia is "safer," but I'm way less worried about my kids up here.
I recently moved from Brooklyn to Phoenix. I'd have an easier time of letting my 4-year-old walk on the sidewalks of Brooklyn than anywhere in Phoenix. The driving is so much worse and so much faster here. Cars are also my biggest fear going into her more independent years. People flying out of our condo complex, a 7-lane road adjacent to it, everyone rageful and in a hurry constantly. I'm far more worried about inattentive drivers than playground falls or kidnappers.
I’m not an expert on brain development but I’m pretty sure kids just simply do not have a lot of spatial awareness. I know I tend to watch out for them even just walking around them because they don’t pay attention to where they are going.
We visited family in Europe earlier this summer. So much has changed there compared to only 10-15 years ago. We were never once worried for our kids wandering around alone, because streets were designed so drivers had to drive slow. Also no monster trucks and monster SUVs everywhere. Also lot's of segregated bikelanes. Lots of walkable neighborhoods. A lot fewer casual sociopaths, you know, the sort of people you see here driving on bald tires with their bumper ripped off, jagged pieces of metal sticking out from the front of their car.
Yes, kids brains are underdeveloped, but streets accommodate that there, it's not a death sentence.
It's absolutely unreal how far America seems to have fallen behind, compared to just 10-15 years ago, and how far ahead new traffic calming measures have gotten there in that same timeframe. That's the main thing that strikes us on our return. The absolute complete solipsism on this issue, how trashy and violent the public realm is here.
You obviously don't have kids. Even as 3/4 year olds they have great spatial skills when running, climbing, jumping. Better than most adults. They have less boundaries, that's for sure.
The saddest thing to me that the window is so small to fix it. If my city dawdles another 5-10 years to make our streets safer, my kids will be old enough for it not to matter anymore.
It's a really hard choice. How long are we waiting around until we just pack up and move to somewhere that is safe, to a place where our kids can have independent mobility.
America is so way behind, not only the major centers, even worse in all the 2nd and 3rd tier cities where people still get an aneurysm when somebody dares to suggest to install a bikelane.
It's sad, because America is so large even in each city, it wouldn't be hard to have one suburb or neighborhood dedicated to "family friendly slow streets" and another elsewhere to "walking retirement community", etc.
Instead we get nearly identical developments repeated over and over and over again.
Speedbumps help a bit, but many drivers break down just before the bump and then speed to the next one. Better solution is to design the street for slower traffic. Narrow it down, expand the sidewalks and/or add a bike path, Make speeding uncomfortable and the average speeds will go down.
Me too.
With that being said, as a parent now, the #1 fear I have with my children playing outside unsupervised isn't kidnapping or violence or anything that would appear on Unsolved Mysteries or America's Most Wanted.
It's cars. My fear is cars.
My boys are 7 & 5 years old and they are both very inattentive. No matter how hard I try to put the fear of the road into them, they both have a tendency to mindlessly wander into it without looking. My older one is autistic, so I'm sure that has something to do with it, but my younger one is not and he is even worse.
I live in a suburb in Maryland named Columbia. Its residential areas were thoughtfully planned-out with very few "busy roads" running through them, but I regularly see people (teenagers?) flooring 50+mph down sleepy tree-lined 25mph streets.
I have no doubt in my mind that, if left unattended, both of my boys would be run over by one of these insane drivers within a week.
Edit: Yes, we and others have complained to the city. Yes, there are speed cameras and the like, but this behavior has only gotten worse post-COVID.
Edit 2: Looks like I'm not alone in thinking this way… https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32679858