Nearly knocked over a kid.

clanton

I drove today as I'm feeling a bit under the weather. On the way home there was a group of schoolkids horsing around on the edge of the road in Coulsdon, the usual pushing and mucking about. Because they were so near the edge I was keeping an eye on them and yet still barely had time to react when a kid on a BMX ramped his bike out from the pavement, through the group and into the road just a few metres in front of me. I jerked the wheel away from him and stopped in time, he stopped, and we stared at each other for half a second before he rode off with a big grin on his face. I was clearly way more frightened by the experience than he was!

snellgrove

Kids!! :evil:

Hate the little buggers, they never look where they're going when stepping into roads. I may have become a bit biased of late though.

mtbcommuter

I live near two schools and I'm convinced that most kids think they are indestructible! The number of times I've turned a corner on 2 or 4 wheels to come across a group of them meandering across the road staggers me.... and they ALWAYS think it's a giggle if a car sounds it's horn.

sicknote

As far as he is concerned you were going to stop anyway as I have them do it to me but walking and slowly too.

They dont see it as a problem but I have had a work with one or two of them.

Onan

I was no better when I was a kid. I can remember I used to see it as a challenge to cross roads as slowly as possible, and to try to get cars to slow down. A kind of even more suicidal game of chicken.

Of course, it was much more fun if they got annoyed about it, and beeped at me.

sicknote

Onan wrote:

I was no better when I was a kid. I can remember I used to see it as a challenge to cross roads as slowly as possible, and to try to get cars to slow down. A kind of even more suicidal game of chicken.

Of course, it was much more fun if they got annoyed about it, and beeped at me.

Not sure how old you are but if I had tried that when I was younger I would have got a slap the first and not done it again, which I think should happen more but that might just be me.

By the way I am 41, 42 in jan.

Onan

Sicknote wrote:

Onan wrote:

I was no better when I was a kid. I can remember I used to see it as a challenge to cross roads as slowly as possible, and to try to get cars to slow down. A kind of even more suicidal game of chicken.

Of course, it was much more fun if they got annoyed about it, and beeped at me.

Not sure how old you are but if I had tried that when I was younger I would have got a slap the first and not done it again, which I think should happen more but that might just be me.

By the way I am 41, 42 in jan.

I'm 27.

How would you have got a slap? I can only assume that in the early 80s, when you were hitting your troublesome double figures, children were so polite, they would complicitly stop and wait for an irate driver to pull over, get out of their car, approach and reprimand them in the street, instead of the far more sensible option of laughing, pointing and running away.

I'm fairly sure that children have been hedge hopping, knocking and running, throwing stones at cars, and getting up to all manner of naughtiness since long before either of us was born, and I'm of the opinion that any attempt to link this kind of behaviour to a percieved lapse in the standards of discipline is bogus. As if returning to a time when adults would clout the children of strangers around the ear would put a stop to this sort of silliness. As if it ought to be put a stop to in the first place.

In their day, both my Dad, and my Grandad recall getting up to exactly the sorts of things I did. Exactly the sorts of thing in fact, which would probably get you an ASBO today.

sicknote

Onan

I will let you know that no I would not have stayed there but I would not have done it in the first place ( bar when very young but never again as the person in the car was one of my teachers ) and I would not have wanted my mum or dad to have found out that I was showing them up out on the street.

My mum and dad ( before he died )are Jamaican, and to you that might not mean much but a round where I lived, you did not play up in the street and let what you have done get home before you :shock:

I am not saying that children did not get in to trouble but if I got pulled up by an adult for something I was doing wrong, I would not have given them lip and been happy to have just been told off and that it did not get home.

Put of what I see as some of the problems now is children growing themselves up or having no respect for ours, well there was I saying that I grew up with.

If you want to act like a man, then you got treated like one.

By the way do you have kids as it does make a difference to what you see sometimes.

Onan

Nope, no kids. Hoping I never have any. Hate the little buggers.

I see a parallel for instance between the "problem" of antisocial behaviour, and the vilification in the press, and in the wider public consciousness of "hoodies" or "chavs" or whatever people want to call them , and the apprentice curfews of the 1590s.

It's nothing new. Groups of raucous youths causing chaos has been a common discourse throughout british history, and they have often been percieved as a threat to public order, and decency. Their existence has often been cited as evidence of an erosion of moral values, and as justification for more severe forms of judicial punishment.

But I didn't mean to comment on your upbringing, and your views on discipline and the state of the nation are your own.

bradford

Sicknote wrote:

Onan

I will let you know that no I would not have stayed there but I would not have done it in the first place ( bar when very young but never again as the person in the car was one of my teachers ) and I would not have wanted my mum or dad to have found out that I was showing them up out on the street.

My mum and dad ( before he died )are Jamaican, and to you that might not mean much but a round where I lived, you did not play up in the street and let what you have done get home before you :shock:

I am not saying that children did not get in to trouble but if I got pulled up by an adult for something I was doing wrong, I would not have given them lip and been happy to have just been told off and that it did not get home.

Put of what I see as some of the problems now is children growing themselves up or having no respect for ours, well there was I saying that I grew up with.

If you want to act like a man, then you got treated like one.

By the way do you have kids as it does make a difference to what you see sometimes.

+1 The amount of times i get kids and sometimes adults playing the i'll walk as slow as i can in order to get knocked down game,is getting ridiculous :x I find if i don't shirk the issue i usually come out on top! I know who's gunna come of worse and when they see your not backing off,thats when the feathers fly

BentMikey

Onan wrote:

Nope, no kids. Hoping I never have any. Hate the little buggers.

That's evolution in action, that is. :twisted:







(just kidding!!)

Clever Pun

mtbcommuter wrote:

I live near two schools and I'm convinced that most kids think they are indestructible! The number of times I've turned a corner on 2 or 4 wheels to come across a group of them meandering across the road staggers me.... and they ALWAYS think it's a giggle if a car sounds it's horn.

it's true, think of all the stupid things you did as a kid... you learn by hurting yourself

clanton

I think in this instance, judging by his initial reaction, it wasn't deliberate - he wasn't trying to wind me up, just simply being stupid.