Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / Don't Buy Your Kid an E-Scooter/ Bike This Christmas

Transcript

Don't Buy Your Kid an E-Scooter/ Bike This Christmas · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:05
Speaker 1: Good Day.
0:06
Speaker 2: This is the Happy Family's podcast. News bulletins have been
0:08
Speaker 2: covering the issue of e bikes and scooters and kids
0:11
Speaker 2: riding around without helmets and getting up to mischief on
0:14
Speaker 2: these e bikes and scooters non stop.
0:16
Speaker 1: Lately, Kai Host was riding an e bike with another
0:19
Speaker 1: relative when he crashed into a ballard. It had been
0:23
Speaker 1: modified to remove the speed limit without his mum's consent.
0:27
Speaker 2: I felt like my lay was disconnected.
0:30
Speaker 1: Eight year old Zecondo died when his e bike collided
0:33
Speaker 1: with another along this footpath on the Sunshine Coast. A
0:37
Speaker 1: little over two weeks ago.
0:39
Speaker 2: The sixty five year old man who was hit by
0:41
Speaker 2: an e bike on a western Sydney footpath has died
0:44
Speaker 2: in hospital. With Christmas just around the corner, more and
0:47
Speaker 2: more parents are considering buying their children e scooters or
0:50
Speaker 2: e bikes. Is it a good idea? Is it a
0:52
Speaker 2: bad idea? That's our discussion today on The Happy Families podcast. Tragically,
0:57
Speaker 2: so far this year, thirteen lives have been lost just
0:59
Speaker 2: on queen Land roads while riding e mobility devices, and
1:05
Speaker 2: police are reinforcing that safe use is not really up
1:08
Speaker 2: to them. It begins at home, parents, carers, making informed choices,
1:13
Speaker 2: understanding the rules of the legislation, actively supervising young riders
1:17
Speaker 2: and not saying well, because everybody else has got a
1:20
Speaker 2: bicycle that can go eighty kilometers an hour, let me
1:22
Speaker 2: get you one as well. E scooters and e bikes
1:25
Speaker 2: might look like the perfect Christmas surprise, but they come
1:28
Speaker 2: with responsibilities, according to Chief Superintendent Mark Wheeler, who looks
1:32
Speaker 2: after road policing in Queensland. And so today we're going
1:36
Speaker 2: to have a look at what we need to do
1:38
Speaker 2: to get this right. Because if you are coordinating with
1:42
Speaker 2: the North Pole right now about getting some e mobility
1:47
Speaker 2: devices for your children, you want to make sure those
1:49
Speaker 2: elves have made the right decisions, have made sure that
1:54
Speaker 2: everything is compliant, and have checked those devices twice to
1:58
Speaker 2: keep kids safe and to make sure that nobody gets
2:02
Speaker 2: hurt over the summer riding these e bikes. Okay, that's
2:05
Speaker 2: the intro. After the break we talk about what you
2:08
Speaker 2: need to know when it comes to kids e bikes
2:12
Speaker 2: and scooters for Christmas. Stay with us. Hello and welcome
2:18
Speaker 2: to the Happy Families podcast, Real parenting solutions every single day.
2:22
Speaker 2: This is Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast. My name is
2:25
Speaker 2: doctor Justin Coulson with my wife and under our six kids.
2:28
Speaker 2: Missus Happy Families, Kyle. I've been doing a lot of
2:31
Speaker 2: media interviews lately about e bikes and escooters. Seems like
2:34
Speaker 2: every week there's another story, there's another child in the hospital,
2:36
Speaker 2: another near miss. Just recently there have been some devastating
2:42
Speaker 2: news stories where young people have been killed writing them
2:46
Speaker 2: or crashing into somebody or been crashed into and parents
2:49
Speaker 2: are asking of these things safe. So today we're talking
2:51
Speaker 2: about what parents actually need to know about e bikes
2:55
Speaker 2: and e scooters.
2:56
Speaker 1: So we've actually had a scooters for I don't know,
3:00
Speaker 1: five or six years now.
3:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, we bought them when they first came out, and
3:02
Speaker 2: we got the Segway scooters because we thought, oh, we
3:05
Speaker 2: know that brand, and we were kind of disappointed.
3:07
Speaker 1: And they really were a bit of a novelty back then,
3:11
Speaker 1: like not very many people had them. And nowadays I
3:16
Speaker 1: go down to our local shopping center and I'm actually inundated.
3:19
Speaker 1: I'm actually quite nervous going through the car park because
3:23
Speaker 1: there are that many e bikes and scooters with bunches
3:27
Speaker 1: of kids coming together.
3:29
Speaker 2: Well, I'm going to sound like a boomer, right now,
3:30
Speaker 2: But I was riding my bike the other day during
3:33
Speaker 2: the school's busy time, as I was coming back via
3:37
Speaker 2: a bike path, and I nearly got knocked off my bike,
3:40
Speaker 2: my pedal powered bike, my proper road bike. I was
3:43
Speaker 2: wearing my likra and my helmet by a kid who
3:46
Speaker 2: was just flying on the wrong side of the bike
3:48
Speaker 2: path on his high powered e bike. I mean, these
3:52
Speaker 2: things are motorbikes, not e bikes. Let's be honest, And
3:55
Speaker 2: I mean I don't use course language, but I let
3:57
Speaker 2: him know that I was pretty upset with him, and
3:59
Speaker 2: he just kept on writing motoring along. He didn't care.
4:03
Speaker 2: So today the conversation about it, at the risk of
4:05
Speaker 2: sounding like we belong on one of those news talk
4:08
Speaker 2: radio stations, we need to have a chat about them.
4:12
Speaker 2: I might also add that our scooters that we had
4:14
Speaker 2: were limited to twenty four kilometers an hour, and we
4:17
Speaker 2: always thought the kids were helmets and they came off
4:20
Speaker 2: a couple of times and really hurt themselves, Like you
4:23
Speaker 2: can hurt yourself really, really badly when you come off
4:26
Speaker 2: one of these things. Anyway, let me give you the
4:28
Speaker 2: headline numbers, the stats, the big picture stats that are
4:30
Speaker 2: concerning I did some research between January twenty twenty one
4:34
Speaker 2: and December twenty twenty four, so we don't have any
4:36
Speaker 2: of this year's data in the stats that I'm sharing,
4:39
Speaker 2: and it's only got worse. But there were nearly five
4:41
Speaker 2: thousand people who showed up in emergency departments with east
4:44
Speaker 2: scooter injuries during that same period. Eight people died from
4:47
Speaker 2: eastcooter incidents. That was twenty sorry, that was twenty twenty
4:50
Speaker 2: four alone. And just in the past few weeks, like
4:53
Speaker 2: I said, in Queensland has been at least two deaths,
4:55
Speaker 2: one a teenager on the Gold Coast, another an eight
4:57
Speaker 2: year old boy on the Sunshine Coast who is hit
4:58
Speaker 2: by a teenager who is riding one of these e bikes.
5:01
Speaker 2: Just devastating for kids specifically. One regional Queensland hospital was
5:05
Speaker 2: actually the Sunshine Coast Hospital, saw one hundred and seventy
5:08
Speaker 2: six kids aged five to five point fifteen with eastcooter
5:11
Speaker 2: injuries in just two years. It turns out it's about
5:15
Speaker 2: one percent of all their pediatric emergency visits.
5:18
Speaker 1: I actually wasn't aware at just how many kids are
5:21
Speaker 1: being heard. Those are some really big numbers. What is
5:25
Speaker 1: actually the cause of the majority of injuries.
5:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, so probably not surprising. The data shows that fractures
5:33
Speaker 2: the big one. Thirty seven percent of cases head injuries,
5:36
Speaker 2: even with kids wearing helmets, upper limb injuries. But what
5:40
Speaker 2: really gets me is this, eleven percent of the pediatric
5:43
Speaker 2: cases were classified as life threatening or potentially life threatening,
5:46
Speaker 2: so one in just over one in ten life threatening
5:49
Speaker 2: or potentially life threatening kids are getting hurt really seriously.
5:54
Speaker 2: In the Queensland study, forty two percent weren't wearing helmets,
5:57
Speaker 2: thirty six percent was speeding, twelve percent had two kids
5:59
Speaker 2: on one scoot, doubling median age. Of these accidents, fourteen
6:03
Speaker 2: boys make up seventy one percent of the cases, no surprises.
6:06
Speaker 2: They're injury spiked really dramatically around about the ages of
6:10
Speaker 2: fourteen to fifteen.
6:12
Speaker 1: So these stats, we're not talking about eight year olds
6:14
Speaker 1: falling off a scooter here, these older children who are
6:20
Speaker 1: being reckless.
6:21
Speaker 2: Yeah well well yeah, I mean it's teenagers and they're
6:23
Speaker 2: treating these things like toys, but they're capable of real
6:28
Speaker 2: speed and real damage. There are people around our Sunshine
6:32
Speaker 2: Coast suburb and we see it all the time. They're
6:35
Speaker 2: wearing their full face helmets and they're on these scooters
6:40
Speaker 2: and I kid, you know not they're going fast than
6:42
Speaker 2: the car. So it's a fifty or a sixty zone
6:44
Speaker 2: and they're going they're overtaking cars.
6:46
Speaker 1: There's a couple of kids and it's the same kids
6:49
Speaker 1: every time. Down one of our major intersections. There are
6:52
Speaker 1: three lanes on either side, and they're up on one
6:55
Speaker 1: wheel and just doing crazy stuff in the middle of
6:59
Speaker 1: peak our traffic. Yeah, it's infuriating as a parent watching
7:03
Speaker 1: other kids taking risks like this, but it's also really scary.
7:08
Speaker 2: You get really upset about it when we're together. You
7:10
Speaker 2: pointed out all the time, and I'm kind of conflicted.
7:12
Speaker 2: They're obviously doing potentially risky. It's not potentially risky.
7:16
Speaker 1: It is risky, but it's not only risky to themselves.
7:19
Speaker 2: They could hurt somebody.
7:19
Speaker 1: There's so many moving parts around them. Any number of
7:24
Speaker 1: outcomes can can happen at this. So the question everybody
7:29
Speaker 1: I'm assuming is asking, is should I be buying one
7:32
Speaker 1: for my kid?
7:33
Speaker 2: I know I've had a number of parents say what
7:35
Speaker 2: do you reckon? Yes or no? Is it a good
7:37
Speaker 2: idea or not?
7:37
Speaker 1: Look, I know when we first got ours, like we
7:40
Speaker 1: were really like very very cautious. We talk to the kids,
7:45
Speaker 1: this isn't a toy, this is actually a machine.
7:48
Speaker 2: Well, I mean it is a toy, but it's a
7:49
Speaker 2: toy that you've got to respect and be careful around,
7:51
Speaker 2: and just things like they'd be on the footpath and
7:55
Speaker 2: then they go onto the grass and they learned really
7:57
Speaker 2: quickly that those little wheels don't bounce, like if there's
8:01
Speaker 2: a verge between the grass and the footpath, the wheel
8:04
Speaker 2: you can sort of slide along it and come off.
8:06
Speaker 2: And we had a couple of a couple of kids
8:07
Speaker 2: really hurt themselves doing that. My short answer is, I
8:10
Speaker 2: don't think that we should be buying them for our kids,
8:12
Speaker 2: and if we are, we shouldn't. We really need to
8:15
Speaker 2: be having big conversations, serious conversations, big caveats around this.
8:19
Speaker 2: And that's because these are not like the scooters that
8:21
Speaker 2: we grew up with. They are legally scooters. Like I said,
8:24
Speaker 2: they can go twenty five k's an hour. A lot
8:26
Speaker 2: of e bikes and scooters are being illegally modified so
8:29
Speaker 2: they're going sixty k's. I have heard of somebody I
8:34
Speaker 2: actually know them. They have an e bike that can
8:37
Speaker 2: go up to ninety kilometers an hour. This is no
8:41
Speaker 2: longer an e bike. This is not a pedal assist bike.
8:43
Speaker 2: This is a motorbike. I don't care what you call it.
8:45
Speaker 2: And kids, especially kids in their early adolescent years, they
8:48
Speaker 2: don't have the impulse control, they don't have the risk
8:50
Speaker 2: assessment developmentally, they're just not ready to handle that kind
8:53
Speaker 2: of responsibility as a general rule, because they're not growing
8:56
Speaker 2: up with these machines on farms and being taught from
8:59
Speaker 2: an early age how to respect the responsibility that goes
9:02
Speaker 2: along with it.
9:03
Speaker 1: But I know my kid, right, I know they're responsible.
9:06
Speaker 1: They wear their helmet, they do the right thing. So
9:09
Speaker 1: how does that play out?
9:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, and helmet's help. Kids without helmets are seventy eight
9:14
Speaker 2: percent more likely to suffer head injuries than kids with helmets.
9:18
Speaker 2: But kids are riding them at night, they're, like you said,
9:21
Speaker 2: writing them in peak hour traffic. They're on the road.
9:24
Speaker 2: The question isn't just have I got a responsible child?
9:27
Speaker 2: It is every other child around them responsible. Because thirteen
9:31
Speaker 2: percent of injuries involve motor vehicles. Five kids in New
9:35
Speaker 2: South Wales were hit as pedestrians by someone else's scooter.
9:39
Speaker 2: If you're considering it, then I reckon they need to
9:41
Speaker 2: be older, they need to be at least sixteen, they
9:43
Speaker 2: need to be mature, and you need to have iron
9:45
Speaker 2: clad rules. So after the break, let's talk about what
9:47
Speaker 2: the laws are in Australia. We'll also talk about the
9:49
Speaker 2: pros and cons of going ahead with something like this
9:52
Speaker 2: for Christmas. And lastly, I want to talk about the
9:54
Speaker 2: best way to have the conversations. If you do have one,
9:57
Speaker 2: or if you are going to get one for your kids,
10:00
Speaker 2: stay with us. You're back. This is the Happy Family's podcast.
10:10
Speaker 2: If you like the pod and you're enjoying making your
10:13
Speaker 2: family happy because of the stuff you're hearing, we'd love
10:15
Speaker 2: for you to like and share and leave a rating
10:16
Speaker 2: and review. It helps make the podcast more visible, So
10:19
Speaker 2: please jump into the app. It takes you like thirty
10:21
Speaker 2: seconds and it makes a big impact for us. Okay, Kylie,
10:25
Speaker 2: where to from here? What have we got to answer?
10:27
Speaker 1: What are the laws around e bikes and east cooters?
10:30
Speaker 2: So they vary by state. I would say that they're
10:32
Speaker 2: quite messy and pretty much every jurisdiction right now is
10:35
Speaker 2: having a big debate about how they're going to run
10:37
Speaker 2: inquiries and they're doing reviews into the laws. This is
10:40
Speaker 2: a really hot topic politically right now. The general consensus
10:46
Speaker 2: and check your local state legislature and website for more information,
10:51
Speaker 2: but the general position is you're allowed to have ees
10:53
Speaker 2: scooters that can go up to twenty five k's and
10:55
Speaker 2: our kids under twelve are not supposed to be writing
10:57
Speaker 2: them at all, or at least in Queensland, kids between
11:00
Speaker 2: twelve and fifteen should be supervised by an adult. You've
11:03
Speaker 2: got to be wearing a helmet. E bikes are supposed
11:05
Speaker 2: to be limited to two one hundred and fifty. Watt's
11:07
Speaker 2: big problem is that you can get modified e bikes
11:09
Speaker 2: like I said, and go ninetyks an hour six thousand
11:11
Speaker 2: what motors. You can import them legally because they're not
11:15
Speaker 2: classified as road vehicles, so you're buying a motorbike, but
11:19
Speaker 2: there's no regio, there's no insurance, there's no checks or
11:22
Speaker 2: anything like that. It's pretty intense.
11:25
Speaker 1: So it sounds like the law hasn't actually caught up
11:27
Speaker 1: with the technology that's available, and.
11:28
Speaker 2: Not with the way that people are using it either. Yeah,
11:31
Speaker 2: and we actually we saw the police getting stuck into
11:34
Speaker 2: people who are doing this recently. But police are issuing
11:38
Speaker 2: heaves of infringements I came across one stat that said
11:41
Speaker 2: that in Wa alone, eighty five percent were for not
11:44
Speaker 2: wearing helmets. But the police literally cannot be everywhere, and
11:48
Speaker 2: what are they going to do when they see thirty
11:50
Speaker 2: kids riding down the street. You can't pull thirty kids over.
11:53
Speaker 1: We actually saw this when we were on holidays recently
11:56
Speaker 1: down on the Gold Coast. Police were on at the
11:59
Speaker 1: footpath and were stopping e bikes as they were coming through.
12:03
Speaker 1: The curious thing to me watching it as a bystander
12:07
Speaker 1: was that these were kind of adults and they were
12:11
Speaker 1: taking precautions, they were doing the right thing, but they
12:14
Speaker 1: were being discriminated against. Yet there were kids on the
12:18
Speaker 1: road who were going, you know, twice as fast, weren't
12:21
Speaker 1: wearing helmets, and they were completely missed because because the
12:25
Speaker 1: path pilice from the foot path. It just doesn't make
12:28
Speaker 1: sense to me.
12:29
Speaker 2: And the people who are being fined were clearly not
12:31
Speaker 2: happy and were trying to argue their point. I mean,
12:34
Speaker 2: the reality is some of them were going too fast,
12:36
Speaker 2: they certainly weren't wearing helmets, they were writing in places
12:38
Speaker 2: they weren't supposed to be writing, like they were still
12:40
Speaker 2: doing the wrong thing. But it's really hard to stomach
12:42
Speaker 2: it when ten meters away over on the road you're
12:45
Speaker 2: watching kids and adults literally fly by doing exactly the
12:50
Speaker 2: same thing and not being touched. Although that's that's the
12:53
Speaker 2: nature of everything on the road, Like if you're speeding
12:56
Speaker 2: and everyone else is speeding, and then sometimes you're just
12:58
Speaker 2: the one that gets pulled over by the high patrol.
12:59
Speaker 2: That it's just the way it goes. Not that it's
13:01
Speaker 2: happened to me for about forty years, but or thirty
13:05
Speaker 2: how old am I? I've just aged myself. So let's
13:08
Speaker 2: talk about the pros and cons. There's a whole lot
13:11
Speaker 2: of pros. There's a whole lot of cons. What should
13:13
Speaker 2: we start with? What do you think is going to
13:14
Speaker 2: be more fun?
13:15
Speaker 1: Oh? Come on, we've been a bit of a Debbie
13:17
Speaker 1: downer to start with, So let's let's pick up the
13:20
Speaker 1: pace a bit. What are the pros all right?
13:23
Speaker 2: For me? Independence, especially for older teens who are in
13:26
Speaker 2: suburban areas where there's poor public transport, they can provide
13:30
Speaker 2: genuine independence. My favorite two words go outside and this
13:35
Speaker 2: gets the kids off screens and it gets them outside.
13:37
Speaker 2: So I'm really big on the independence as a as
13:41
Speaker 2: a positive here if they've got a proper e bike,
13:44
Speaker 2: not one of those motorbikes. E bikes still require pedaling,
13:47
Speaker 2: so there's some exercise.
13:48
Speaker 1: Yes, So I don't see any kids on a traditional
13:51
Speaker 1: e bike. They're all on these. Yeah, Literally push a
13:54
Speaker 1: button and your ped like you don't have.
13:57
Speaker 2: You've got to do ten pedals and it's up to
13:58
Speaker 2: speed and then it does the rest. So it's a
14:01
Speaker 2: pretty weak probe, but I'm asking it's weak, I'm putting
14:04
Speaker 2: it in the list anyway, sue me. The third one,
14:07
Speaker 2: I think that in a very serious way, there are
14:10
Speaker 2: a lot of people who have accessibility issues, and so
14:12
Speaker 2: if you've got a child with physical limitations or some
14:15
Speaker 2: kind of disability, eat bikes may in some cases be
14:19
Speaker 2: genuinely liberating because they can now keep up with their peers.
14:22
Speaker 2: And the other advantage is if you've got kids who
14:24
Speaker 2: need to get to work or they don't have a
14:26
Speaker 2: driver's license so they can't afford a car cost and
14:29
Speaker 2: transport minimal maintenance. I just think that there are some
14:33
Speaker 2: really good advantages there replace those short car trips. They
14:37
Speaker 2: require us to drive them to work or to school
14:39
Speaker 2: less less well, I was going to say less congestion
14:42
Speaker 2: on the road. But it depends on what they're doing
14:43
Speaker 2: and how they're doing it. I think if we're serious
14:46
Speaker 2: about sustainable transport, immobility definitely has a role. I just
14:50
Speaker 2: don't like the role.
14:51
Speaker 1: But it's currently playing well the wrong people are using them.
14:55
Speaker 2: Or they're using them the wrong ways. Yeah, so let's
14:58
Speaker 2: do the cons It's a long list. Number one injury rates,
15:02
Speaker 2: climbing fast. We cover the stats. It's a genuine public
15:05
Speaker 2: health issue. Speed mismatch.
15:07
Speaker 1: So you get so you've you've acknowledged this, you're on
15:10
Speaker 1: a pedal bike, you're on a bike path, and then
15:14
Speaker 1: you've got a kid coming past you at motorbike speed.
15:19
Speaker 2: On the wrong side of the path. So dangerous sharing
15:21
Speaker 2: this phone, yeah, yeah, fully. And it's not just that
15:24
Speaker 2: like you see them you mentioned in the shopping center
15:26
Speaker 2: car park. So you've got kids on shared paths with
15:28
Speaker 2: pedestrians or going through a shopping center location or a
15:32
Speaker 2: congested area, and you've got elderly people and you've got
15:35
Speaker 2: toddlers and prams and shopping carts, and you've got a
15:38
Speaker 2: fourteen year old going thirty ks an hour on some
15:40
Speaker 2: of those footpaths. It's a collusion waiting to happen, and
15:43
Speaker 2: there are too many tragic tales already, including funerals other disadvantage.
15:47
Speaker 2: Kids just aren't complying when it comes to helmets.
15:50
Speaker 1: But they never have been. Yeah, like skateboarding, like just.
15:54
Speaker 2: But this is prolifect like these, these these are everywheys.
15:58
Speaker 1: Have always been an issue. They're not called.
16:07
Speaker 2: I remember said if you don't need a head, you
16:09
Speaker 2: don't need a helmet. That was the TV ad when
16:12
Speaker 2: I was a kid growing up. Some studies indicate about
16:15
Speaker 2: thirty three percent of kids are wearing helmets. Depends on
16:17
Speaker 2: the study, I'd say in real life it's probably lower
16:20
Speaker 2: brain development. Kids' brains are still risk assessment. It's just
16:23
Speaker 2: an issue peer pressure. The kids are doing doubles and triples,
16:27
Speaker 2: they're racing, they're doing tricks post and boast on social
16:30
Speaker 2: media enforcement. We've talked about it's impossible and parents don't
16:34
Speaker 2: know what the kids are doing. A couple of others
16:36
Speaker 2: cost of modifications. When I was researching for this podcast,
16:39
Speaker 2: I haven't told you this. Kids are buying modifiers online
16:43
Speaker 2: so they can get rid of the speed limitterters. You
16:45
Speaker 2: can have a legal twenty five kilometer e bike. Spend
16:48
Speaker 2: fifty bucks and get it to go sixty k's an hour. Wow,
16:52
Speaker 2: Like this is within the reach of most kids and
16:56
Speaker 2: pedestrian injuries. We're just seeing so many people being hit
16:59
Speaker 2: by e bikes scooters and everyone who goes to the
17:03
Speaker 2: hospital that was hit by somebody doing the wrong thing here,
17:06
Speaker 2: they did not choose to be part of that equation.
17:08
Speaker 1: You've been waffling for a long time.
17:10
Speaker 2: Now, Oh hush, course, so riveting. This is good quality content.
17:13
Speaker 1: We're at like seventeen minutes. You promise, nice, short, easy
17:18
Speaker 1: to listen to.
17:18
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, let's move on.
17:20
Speaker 1: So give us some practical advice. Where do we go
17:23
Speaker 1: from here? As a parent, I've got a child and
17:25
Speaker 1: the top item on their wish list for Christmas as
17:29
Speaker 1: an e bike. They're fourteen, and what am I going
17:32
Speaker 1: to do?
17:33
Speaker 2: So, I mean, my short answer is, I don't think
17:35
Speaker 2: you should get them that. I really don't get them
17:38
Speaker 2: a normal bike that sucks. I don't care. I want
17:43
Speaker 2: one with the motor tough luck, that's just not going
17:46
Speaker 2: to happen. I think you want kids to be at
17:48
Speaker 2: least sixteen, preferably a little bit older. I just don't
17:51
Speaker 2: think that they need them the data and the developmental science.
17:53
Speaker 2: In my viewpoint that way. Start small. You want to
17:57
Speaker 2: make sure that they're confident on a bike or a
17:58
Speaker 2: scooter first, one of them outside, right, I mean, then
18:02
Speaker 2: non negotiable rules. They've got to wear a helmet. They're
18:04
Speaker 2: not allowed to double they're not allowed to write at night,
18:06
Speaker 2: they're not allowed to ride in traffic, speed limits matter.
18:10
Speaker 2: I'm not allowed to look at their phone while they're
18:12
Speaker 2: on the thing. Like, these are common sense things, and
18:14
Speaker 2: I don't think that parents are having these conversations with
18:16
Speaker 2: their kids. They're saying, here's the bike, go for your life,
18:18
Speaker 2: fill your boots. I think you've got to check it regularly,
18:21
Speaker 2: make sure they haven't modified it, and if they do.
18:24
Speaker 2: If they do, then they don't write it. They lose
18:28
Speaker 2: the privilege for a week or a month or whatever.
18:30
Speaker 2: I'm not big on punitive responses, but they've got to
18:32
Speaker 2: play by the rules. And if they already have one, well,
18:38
Speaker 2: whether they do or not. Three is conversations, frank conversations.
18:41
Speaker 2: Talk about what you're worried about, Explore what's going on
18:44
Speaker 2: for them, come up with solutions together where they can
18:46
Speaker 2: use it and be safe again. I'm not beyond consequences,
18:49
Speaker 2: but they matter. First offense, without a helmet, it gets
18:52
Speaker 2: locked up for a week. Second offense, you lose it.
18:56
Speaker 2: If you want one, you can pay for it yourself,
18:58
Speaker 2: and you'll pay for the fine and you'll do everything
19:00
Speaker 2: else as well. I just the costs are high, the
19:02
Speaker 2: cost of high. And if you're saying no, don't feel guilty.
19:06
Speaker 2: The data supports you. Like a parent's job is to
19:09
Speaker 2: keep the kids safe, and sometimes we.
19:11
Speaker 1: Just you don't give your kids keys to a car
19:14
Speaker 1: before they've learned to drive.
19:15
Speaker 2: And they've got a learner's permit, that's right, and.
19:19
Speaker 1: This is a genuine risk to their safety and those
19:22
Speaker 1: around them.
19:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, they don't know the road rules, but they're on
19:24
Speaker 2: the roads. I mean, in so many ways, this is
19:27
Speaker 2: like having a driver's license, but oh sorry, driving on
19:30
Speaker 2: the road. But you're just not in a car, you're
19:32
Speaker 2: on a bike. It's look, I'm not anti technology, and
19:35
Speaker 2: we do need to wrap this up. I think that
19:37
Speaker 2: emobility has a place, and I think that there's some
19:41
Speaker 2: real benefits and bonuses for our kids and for our
19:43
Speaker 2: families and for us. It's quite convenient, but right now
19:46
Speaker 2: we're running this massive uncontrolled experiment on our kid's safety.
19:50
Speaker 2: The laws are inconsistent, enforcement is patchy at best, and
19:53
Speaker 2: the injury numbers are frankly terrifying. So our jobs to
19:59
Speaker 2: look at the DAR, understand the developmental realities and make
20:01
Speaker 2: decisions that are going to prioritize our kids safety over
20:04
Speaker 2: convenience or pit pressure. And sometimes that means saying no.
20:08
Speaker 1: Even when it's not the popular answer.
20:10
Speaker 2: Especially especially then. Anyway, let's wrap it up. There, enough questions,
20:14
Speaker 2: enough time, Good luck for Christmas. If this is on
20:17
Speaker 2: your kid's Christmas wish list. The Happy Families podcast is
20:20
Speaker 2: produced by Justin Rulan from Bridge Media, Mim Hammond's provised research,
20:24
Speaker 2: admin and other support. If you'd like boring fo to
20:27
Speaker 2: make your family happier, visit us at happy families dot
20:29
Speaker 2: com DoD a