Is vandalism to bikes a problem at your nearby school?
My son and I attended a meeting for >our new along with about a dozen other families, and the coaches told the parents “stop driving your kids to school and make them bike. Building their training into their trip to school is the best kind of training they can get.”
Several teens immediately piped up, telling the adults that bikes in the bike parking area at the school are frequently vandalized. My son has had his bike tires and saddles slashed. This has been going on for a few years at least, and my complaints to school staff about this went absolutely nowhere.
The team business sponsor at this meeting expressed complete disbelief that the school adminstration would do nothing about this vandalism and dismissed the vandalism complaints as excuses.
The kids bring up a valid point, in my opinion: it’s really discouraging when you get out of class at the end of the day to find somebody has cut your tires or put something on your saddle. According to my son, it’s not a targeted thing, but somebody will go and damage several bikes all at once. It’s just malicious, stupid stuff. I live in small city with many affluent residents (a common nickname for my town is “Snob Valley”), and a lot of these teens have really nice rigs.
Have you heard of this at your local school? If so, was anything done to remove fear of vandalism as an impediment to biking to school?
P.S. The team needs sponsors. Let me know if you’re interested.
See also:
- Walk / Bike to School Day
- Student killed riding bike to school
- Noddin Elementary School bike rodeo
- School driving ban?
