When I was driving in a residential neighbourhood recently, I nearly made a right turn directly into the path of a boy on a bike. He was riding on the wrong side of the street and coming straight at me in my lane. Luckily, I saw him and let him pass. A week later, the same thing happened with a boy on an e-scooter. That time, I rolled down my window and told him how dangerous it was to ride on the wrong side of the road. Could a child get a ticket for this? Do children no longer get instruction on safe bike riding on the road? – Marilyn, Brampton, Ont.
There’s nothing minor about kids defying the rules of the road, police say. But, although kids 12 and older could get a traffic ticket, police say they’re more likely to give them a roadside safety lesson.
“We’re not in the business of ticketing people just to ticket them,” said Sean Shapiro, a road safety consultant and retired Toronto traffic cop. “But it’s a really good opportunity to educate kids and ticketing doesn’t seem like the best way to start.”
Anyone who rides a bike on the road, including kids, has to follow the same traffic rules as motorists, Shapiro said.
So, for instance, kids and adults must legally ride on the right side of the road – unless they’re in a contra-flow bike lane that lets them ride in the opposite direction to traffic – and walk their bikes through crosswalks.
But in Toronto and surrounding cities, kids under 14 are allowed one exception – they can ride on the sidewalk.
It’s up to individual officers to decide whether to issue tickets.
“With kids, we try to take the educational route first,” said Constable Tyler Bell, spokesman for Peel Regional Police, which covers Brampton and Mississauga.
If police did give kids a ticket, they would also notify parents, Bell said.
Also, any traffic ticket given to a cyclist – of any age – is only a fine. It doesn’t include demerit points and it isn’t supposed to go onto the cyclist’s driving record.
Shapiro said he might have a talk with the parents, especially if a kid was mouthing off and refused to acknowledge that they had done something wrong. All parents should be making sure their kids can cycle safely on their own – that includes understanding and following the rules of the road.
“It is incumbent on every parent to make sure that their child is safe when they leave the house because they want them to come back home,” Shapiro said.
That also means that parents must make sure kids wear helmets – which are required by law in Ontario for cyclists under 18 – and that they’re old enough to legally ride e-bikes and e-scooters.
“Kids at my kids’ school show up with electric scooters,” Shapiro said. “They’re not legally allowed to ride those [or e-bikes] until they’re 16. So there are a lot of things happening that shouldn’t be.”
While the rules vary by province, kids 12 and over can get traffic tickets if they break laws while cycling.
Generally, cycling tickets don’t come with demerit points and don’t go on your driving record.
Where to learn?
So, where can kids learn how to ride bikes safely – and legally?
While parents can enroll kids in local safe cycling workshops or take courses with them online, moms and dads are “generally responsible for the bulk of their child’s safety education,” Lewis Smith, a manager of national projects with the Canada Safety Council (CSC), an Ottawa-based non-profit, said in an email.
There’s a lot to learn. For instance, kids should understand traffic signals, know where it is and isn’t safe for them to ride, know applicable laws and know how to act predictably around cars, Smith said.
While some individual schools offer bike safety courses, it would be a good idea for all schools to offer them, Smith said.
“Cycling education in school curricula would be a great way to bring safety to the fore,” Smith said. “It should never be intended to replace a parent’s involvement, but as a supplemental tool.”
Michael Longfield, executive director of the advocacy group Cycle Toronto, said bike education in all schools “would be a really good and powerful thing.
“It’s a way to help enable and empower kids to ride bikes,” Longfield said. “And it could ultimately help build support for safe and connected cycling networks so that all ages and abilities can use them.”
But even if your kids have learned all the rules, they still might be at risk riding on streets without you there, Shapiro said.
“I have children that are under 14. They do not ride a bicycle without their dad. And that’s not to say I’m a helicopter parent,” Shapiro said. “I’m just not willing or trusting that children at that age know the right thing to do and are just going to figure it out.”
Have a driving question? Send it to globedrive@globeandmail.com and put ‘Driving Concerns’ in your subject line. Emails without the correct subject line may not be answered. Canada’s a big place, so let us know where you are so we can find the answer for your city and province.
Have a driving question? Send it to globedrive@globeandmail.com and put ‘Driving Concerns’ in your subject line. Emails without the correct subject line may not be answered. Canada’s a big place, so let us know where you are so we can find the answer for your city and province.