For parents

You probably drive a car, as most parents do. You may well be alarmed by the idea of your child riding a bicycle on the roads – this is understandable given the rather hysterical nature of some reporting of child injury statistics.

The greatest source of risk to children is motor traffic. Road crashes kill more schoolchildren in Britain than any other cause - more children die from car crashes in two weeks than are murdered in a year. Most of these children are not riding bicycles. And although people often blame the children, it is a sobering fact that in crashes involving cars and child pedestrians the child pedestrian is four times more likely to take avoiding action than the car driver. Between fifty and a hundred pedestrians are killed on pavements by drivers every year, and rather more on pedestrian crossings. The death toll on Britain’s roads every day equals that in the Paddington rail crash; an average week sees more dead on the roads than all the rail crashes of the last two decades put together.

And I want you to let your child out on the roads on a bicycle. I want you to do that because, in the end, the benefits outweigh the risks by up to 20:1.

The first, best thing you can do to help your child to be safe on their bike is to take more care when driving, and encourage your friends to do the same. Not just around your home and your children’s school, but around other people’s homes and schools. Country lanes with no pavements, narrow urban streets with parked cars, junctions and especially roundabouts are places where a moment’s inattention can have fatal results. Slowing down, covering the brake and taking a second look can literally make the difference between life and death. And always leave plenty of room around pedestrians and cyclists; remember that a bike needs room to weave in order to stay upright, and children in particular tend to steer where they're looking. If they look to the right to see how close you are, they will move to the right. Make sure they have space to do so. When you overtake a bike you should leave at least as much space as you would a car - I recommend not less than 1.5m from the handlebars and preferably more. Remember, your overtaking can cause the cyclist to wobble, and a sudden pothole could make them fall off. Never overtake in width restrictions, near junctions, on the approach to roundabouts.

Another thing you can do is go out riding with your kids and teach them road sense. Teach them how car drivers think, and how to behave in a predictable way so car drivers know what they are going to do. Make sure they know what road signs mean, and how to behave at junctions. The Highway Code can help and John Franklin’s Cyclecraft is first class.

Above all please remember this: the greatest risk to your child, whether riding or walking, is ordinary drivers like you. You can change that.