00:00 Crowd-sourced news from around the UK: observations on political or funding trends as well as local campaign updates.
13:36 Dr Elsa Devienne on the History of the School Run (1980s-2020s), Environmental Historian, discussing the history of pollution, politics and the school run
So tonight in the active travel Cafe we will start with our usual crowdsource news and so we’d really like to hear what’s happening where you are and also if you’d like to mention any any items of news of sort of national or even International then you’re very welcome
To put your hand up um our speaker tonight is Dr Elsa devian she’s a historian an assistant professor at Nora University and she’s going to talk to us about her Research into the history of the School run and I’ve heard her talk about this before and I was I think that
You will really love this um I think it’s just something that we perhaps take kind of for granted we don’t really interrogate you know how this has come to be um and probably need to think a little bit more about about about about that what we might do about it
Um so on that note I will turn to take items of news first of all and Ben I can see you’ve got your hand up do you want to come in first yep I thought I’d get in there quickly um yeah the wheels for well-being photo Bank of images of
Disabled cyclists will launch on Thursday and I’m putting a a link in the chat for you um it will probably take a day or two for us to to work through all of the the applications for accounts but you know if you think that you might find a use for images of disabled
Cyclists then you know please do apply for an account and have have a look to see whether we’ve got some images that will meet your purposes thank you Ben that’s great um and yes please do share that in the chat and Robin I um I can’t not tell you about
The latest uh fund developments in Oxford’s ltns um so uh labor who are no longer part of the County Council Alliance raised a motion to council suggesting a number of um proposals to reduce transport uh traffic congestion um which included opening up uh some streets to traffic some streets that go through the
Ltns um that came to council this morning um we had number of speakers against this the motion um but just the speaker of before me was one of the fervent anti-n critics who who lives in the ltn and he he said uh so but one of
The proposals was to open up his street and he said um I think this motion is terrible because it um my street is completely unsuited to be opened up but all the other streets in the LT should be opened up just not mine class absolute classic anyway um we
Had about um 10 people speaking against the motion anti all the anti-tm people spoke in general against it um we had people speaking against it um and uh in the end it timed out it the council just ran out of time to debate the motion and
Uh so it didn’t go through so um we I mean really do go from the sublime to the ridiculous I don’t think it would have had any effect anyway because the ideas would have just gone to officers in the big Hopper of ideas that they’re thinking about anyway um and another day
Has gone towards um us getting the Strategic traffic filters which will actually reduce traff traffic by a significant amount I count the days down one by one praying and hoping that everything keeps going right and hanging on a roller coaster ride in Oxford absolutely absolutely thanks Robin and
Mark well as one of the Consultants working on East talks of mini Holland it’s very good news because we we had a meeting yesterday with the officers and we were hoping that it nothing would happen so we wouldn’t have to go and redo all our reports but so thanks for
That that update you I’ll have more more time to do work um I just want to report that the KO had its Bike Share conference uh this week and there’s lots of developments on Bike Share going on and I think at one point we talked about me coming in actually doing a
Presentation so I’m I’m trying to re reiterate that might be a good idea to catch up because there’s big changes um if Adam’s the um I spoke to people from Bristol about concerns about Adam Reynolds is about concerns about scooters in in Bristol being um fewer
Than they should have been and no bikes in Bristol and so on and there are lots of there’s lots of stuff going on in the bik share micro Mobility world and at some point maybe me and somebody else might be good because I’m not really a
Scooter person but it might be a good thing to bring on and just keep going and I’m going to Brussels on February the 6 for shared Mobility rocks which is a European um shared mobility and rock conference so if anyone wants to come and join me in bristles they’ be very
Happy to come and drink beer and hear about shed Mobility thanks Mark and thank you for that offer I’m sure we’ll take you up on that um H are you there can’t see you no I’m gonna take Lorna no I’ve got I got you speaking now
Yeah we can hear you now okay uh it’s because I’ve got a new Android my old one died um just to say one for Robin in Oxford I’m tracking down the fatality with um an hs2 delivery truck um at Parkway that hasn’t come to an inquest yet has
It um but very interesting like Court I I don’t know about inquest but it it’s just been through court and the driver was found not guilty which we all pissed off about I’ve been compiling Jim Chisum also commented he’s had an incident I’ve had an incident and at least three of
The London incidents are similar um this was the second vehicle of two inally traveling in Convoy empty to collect more aggregate the hs2 site somewhere the other side of bista and um it would appear that a very large number of fatal hgv cycle crashes involving construction
Tippers um have two drivers and it’s the second driver that hits the cyclist because they’re they’re relying on the front driver to do all the road observation and just follow them and I don’t know how common this is it seems to be a factor and I don’t know whether
We’ve got anything on it just another piece of news is that as of Monday we now have a footway parking ban Al though whether they’ve noticed any difference I don’t know um but we’re getting lots of reports of is this really happening but we’ll see thank you yeah that’s great
News in Scotland we’re hope looking all looking at that very enviously from other parts of of the other countries um Lor can I take you yeah so hello sorry I’ve been absent for a bit because the escooters PHD is nearly done um or should be nearly done but some of you
Might have seen that I’ve pivoted research to uh topic and this week I’ve been doing some autoethnography of a within ltn ksis and I’ve got my uh my nice broken leg um but I had a chat with the Met police today and it was a really positive discussion this really clear
CCTV and they’re intending to prosecute for causing Serious injury by at least careless driving so it’s kind of really nice for me to see that those changes to the law that came through and those changes to the highway code are making it much more likely that the man who ran
Me over with a car on Saturday is going to get a driving ban but not great Lor for you I’m so sorry to hear that I mean as broken legs go it’s a very good broken leg but it was a bit bad that I’ve given up my job
To focus on my PhD and we now be focusing on the leg but you know maybe there’ll be a paper come out of it about the experience going through the justice system strongly recommend you get run over somewhere where they have a ring doorbell oh well I hope I hope you get
Some good relaxation time over the Christmas break um aan oh I just wanted to report back two things one was the um 2020 conference in Edinburgh last week which was really successful we had a 12 130 people there and the Scottish minister of Transport committed again to uh rolling out 20
Miles an hour across Scotland um by 2025 uh probably not like Wales with a National Default it’ll probably be done local Authority local Authority but there is there is the commitment there so it’s that’s that’s really good news um the other thing I want to say was in
Su have just released division zero consultation or they’re taking through cabinet and actually that it’s quite good and I’ll post a couple of links I’ll post a link to our website where there will be videos of the conference um put up in due course um I’ll also
Post a link to the S Vision zero document which is H pretty actually it’s a good good read thank you Adrien that would be great thanks um Dave thank you Sally evening everybody um I was on last week’s call but only managed to um kind
Of butt in really at the end um I wanted to let everybody know about brand B radio um which is a will be a new funky green and music uh internet radio station um spoken word content will be 95% good news news about such people as yourselves and your projects and your experience
And um basically I’m asking for people to get in touch with the radio station via our website I can put the website up in the chat um last time I did something similar to this was when I was talking with um seeka Southeast climate lines um which I regularly attended as in my
Role as coordinator for Brighton andho Friends of the earth group um but now I’ve completely got a different hat so that’s why I’m c a cooker in the nest in the way but I want us to um be able to connect with positive stories positive individuals and characters and make programs together
And amplify your voice and your story and your mission and uh etc etc so I don’t know how we quite left it at the end of last session Sally I don’t think I think I think if you po if you could post that in the chat and just if
People can there’s a way that people can get in touch with you uh you’re welcome to email us as well Adam can put our email address in the chat and we can take it from there do do you have a newsletter as such just the
Email that you get no we don’t have a newsletter just the email that announces the sessions but if you get in touch with us email uh and if you want to post in the chat then then we can get back to I’ll just put I’ll just put our simple
Holding page of a web page up in the that would be great thank you thank you Adam um right this is this is kind of interesting um they’re doing a a b City Center uh consultation at the moment um and the Fallout from that was that there
Was a missing link um it’s probably from the crsts program the city region sustainable transport um settlements that people some some of you maybe the privilege to have that access to um one of the things we’ve been able to agree um as of um it was phenomenal it’s me
And Frank who’s on here we’ve been campaigning for this for many years was to get a bridge um committed into crsts 2 so in other words we know from we’re already beginning to line up projects for the 2027 to 2032 bid so what set up now now’s your time to start sort of
Engaging with with your officers looking at infrastructure what the missing holes are um and plan for what you want to see in the next well in five years time or whatever it is start delivery but um but yeah it was a really lovely Christmas present but um yeah very very happy but
It’s it was interesting that they said you know what yeah we missed it in the crsts one uh TR work but we’ll commit to it if for CR crsts 2 and so to have that sort of commitment now in 2020 at the end of 2023 for 2027 funding pop is
Probably quite a significant thing and probably something people should be aware of if they’re not getting what they want from their City region sustainable transport settlement this time round and there’s a load of money coming in in 2027 they should be jumping on to that that’s thanks Adam thanks for sharing
That um and I think if we don’t have any more news items we will move on to tonight’s speaker no no more news items uh so I am delighted to um to have Elsa devien here who’s going to talk to us about the history of the school run um
Elsa do you want to share your screen I’ll let you introduce yourself yes thank you very much Sally and thanks to all the organizer of the active travel Cafe I’m going to share my screen in a second and yeah I’m going to introduce myself very quickly uh I’m a historian
Of the environment uh it is of I do environmental history which is basically the history of uh uh our relationship humans relationship with nature over time and I usually focus more on US history but uh as I became involved I migrated here from France uh I think
About six years ago and as I had children Etc I started becoming involved in my active Travel Group locally in ancester and I started becoming you know very much angry and appalled at the situation of walking and cycling in this country anyway this brought me to thinking about the history of Active
Travel and uh yeah the history of car dominance basically in the UK and and and um and a year ago I I connected with a geographer at uh manmat uh called Dr D plat who is working on um on a research strand that we ended up calling walking with children and
Infants that is that this idea that walking with children with someone who’s vulnerable who’s irrational sometimes at least for those under uh four who you know uh is slow has has different needs different um uh but also different uh joys in Walking than than an adult that this particular experience needed
Unpacking from researchers from all kinds of disciplines uh in my case uh uh history but but obviously from from other perspectives as well and so that brought me to or co-organized with her a workshop bringing practitioners and um and and and um academics on this on this
Idea of Walking With Children how how how does that change to focus on on that specific uh experience how can we have uh a children and and walking with children centered policy uh thinking anyway that got me to thinking about what could be my contribution to that
Workshop and as I was walking my child to school of course this idea of like what the hell is going on uh why do we why do I have to breathe in so much fumes every morning and why do people uh Drive their kids to school even though
They live literally like just five minute walking distance from it drove me crazy and I thought I need to understand what happened then so yeah basically having children radicalized me as I’m sure it has happened to many of us and now I’m a proud owner of a cargo bike a
Bromton bike and yes I’m afraid I’ve become one of those bike people anyway um now the school run as being a universally hated experience by the British population of frazzled parents is not a new thing uh actually 30 years ago um journalist Marg Norman was already wondering in the Collins of the
Times why parents and children were enduring that I quote deadly crawl through clouds of poisonous gas surely she reflected the time had come to abolish that barbaric twice daily ritual I found so many really good quotations re researching that topic uh so no far from abolishing it British parents have
Doubled and trebled down on it and the figures speak for them M elv I’m sure many of you are already familiar with those figures uh so this is for 5 to 10 year olds uh from 1985 86 till uh more recently uh 68% of the five to 10 year
Olds walked to school in 85 but only 54 did 10 years later and the decline has continued steadily since then although there’s a small Reason for Hope since the 2022 uh travel survey showed a slight reversal of the trend now the the Frantic schoolb has become such an iconic parenting experience an iconic
Maybe British parenting experience we can talk about this later on that in typical British fashion it has provided plenty of joke fodder in press and in TV including more recently most recently uh for the writers of the TV show motherland with the first scene of the first episode The Pilot which aired in
2016 showing Julia the perpetually stressed mother of two uh flouting traffic rules to get to school on time and using quite a lot of expletives in the process now this is a show related on relatability right this idea that as parents we would see our worst traits
Reflected back at us uh and so the choice to start the series with a delinquent School run was sort of giving the majority of ERS and the majority of British parents who drive their kids to school a pass the the subtext was it is
How is it isn’t it and we all we all do it sometimes don’t we so how did we get there was my question uh starting this research and how’s this how’s this school why is the school run become this Hallmark of British everyday life now uh researching uh the school run and why
The school run is what it is today of course uh has there there’s a lot of factors to that and in fact in fact I can turn to uh really interesting literature on uh historical literature on car dominance on the transformation of the built environment in the post
Period on the rise of car ownership I can uh also turn to the very rich literature on um in Mobility studies on children’s independent mobility and I could you know quote all the factors that I usually mention the fact that women uh are now much more uh
Likely to work work uh the changing patterns of working shift working but also the Advent of Parental choice in education uh since the uh late 80s early 90s which has increased the distance between home and school the decline in public transport options especially buses uh uh longer commutes to work uh
Or the fear of stranger danger I mean these are all factors that are absolutely uh crucial to understand uh uh the school runs but I don’t think and by the way the little cutouts these are the ones that I that that um the local Council ended up putting near my son
School when I complain about people um parking on zigzag l so I’m sure you’ll you’ll you you’ll you’ll you agree with me that this is poor um poor infrastructure but anyway I was still happy about it um so these are factors that are helpful to understand uh the
School run but at the same time for me they don’t explain everything they don’t explain the called Chelsea tractor the Volvo culture the yummy mummies at the school Gates the obsession with car status that is they don’t explain the performance of class and motherhood at the school Gates that’s where the the
Title for my presentation comes from this idea of performance um at the school Gates nor do these studies explain why the school run and air pollution became part of the British culture wars that is how did the School run become political that’s the second P of my title performance politic
And then pollution was the third so other social and cultural historian my first stop to uh study um the history of the school run was very quite uh simply to just look at the press for the expression the school run which by the way doesn’t exist in my native language
In French you there’s no such thing as school run like you just take your children to school there’s there’s not like a specific uh uh expression it always intrigued me so anyway I looked up we have these databases uh this database called factiva where you can look at look up a
Specific phrase uh and interestingly it kind of gives you the story there uh the school run really isn’t a thing until about like the first time I the first instance I found was in 1988 in the times when they described uh how a woman I’m very very elite type of mother doing
The school run and who was I quote a slave to the school run I mean that kind of language is is very interesting but then really the first flurry of Articles really appear in the mid 1990s around 1995 uh when you have uh in particular the event of the four-wheel drive as the
Vehicle of choice for the school run in fact one journalist claims that at that point it entered our national mythology uh so this is a moment of Rapid increase in the sale of the these uh vehicles and how does this happen largely because of the marketing Mark car manufacturers who uh I quote
Elevated I’ve elevated the school run to Lifestyle experience but it’s also backed by a whole system uh that includes the media just to give you an example in 1996 the prize in the times uh back to school competition was a Jeep Cherokee that tells you something about
How we think about the school run but the mid 1990s are also the moments of the first M Mass protest against congestion the first uh walk to school week the first safe roots to school initiatives left led by sustance and uh also the release of an important report
By Dr Meyer Hillman on the loss of children’s Independence uh at that time compared to previous generation there’s also a series of policy reports and surveys that are published around that time that highlight the problem uh whether it is about uh children being killed uh hair pollution asthma
Etc to to the point that by 1997 1998 you have a fairly broad political consensus that something must be done and in fact the conservative government already uh starts putting some things in motions before the arrival of new labor um and in fact there’s no better sign
That new labor was taking the issue seriously than the blares supposedly deciding on their daughters School based on the school run in any case the moment where you see that first Peak on in my chart is 1998 why because this is the year when the new labor government
Published its white paper on transport promising I quit a new deal for transport so they uh which included a host of measures such as you know Green transport plans for schools safe Roots extra lollipop patrols uh bike bike sheds child escort schemes the walking bus schemes uh congestions and parking
Charges etc etc interestingly I mean you can see that it was uh not that radical I mean it was really they were really careful not to alienate the motorists because uh John Prescot uh the minister of Transport at the time described himself in the in the white paper as a
Car driver wanting to quote unquote increase personal choice uh and making a better economic choice for the nation climate change is mentioned but you know it’s it’s not exactly the main reason and that’s when in the newspapers you start seeing those war on the school run
Papers at that point uh the war on the school run language becomes ubiquitous obviously in a certain kind of newspapers at the time so the the backlash is immediate on those uh initiatives and they become even uh even more stringent in the 2000 when uh the
Goal is to uh for the new labor government to go back to the 1980s that is to cut by onethird uh the car Journeys to school by the way of course they fail um so then that the the issue continues to be important throughout the
Late 90s and early 2000 then you have uh around 2003 another Peak which is linked to uh in particular the London congestion charge and another traveling to school initiative so John presin goes back again and then you have a plateau which seems to me to imply that maybe things do get
Better for a while I mean there had been a consensus that things were getting had of hand in the late 90s so seems like things do stabilize for a while and then you have another Peak around the 20110 which I’ve attributed to celebrities uh so a lot of celebrities
Are doing the school run you know the spies girls Etc and that becomes like people are obsessed with like their fashion at the school Gates but also parking is huge at the time the there’s another Peak a little bit later I’m not sure what it is about and then the co
Lockdown you can see it clearly less people are uh worried about the school run of course uh but then it goes back up quite quickly afterwards now what have I learned from reading through three decades of press archives well there’s clearly what we could call a school run culture that is deeply
Entrenched representations and narratives about cars education and Parenthood which any policy maker wishing to change people habits people’s habit has to Grapple with so what kind of values what kind of narratives uh one of those narratives that is pretty obvious is is is that of the the is is
Seen through car advertisement of the time uh that is in the 1990s and 2000s the ways in which the 44 the 4-wheel uh the four-wheeler and from 2002 the SUV uh was fr FR as the vehicle of choice for the school run uh for instance maybe
Some of you remember the Daddy Cool Vox hole ad I’m I’m not from here so I don’t remember uh I mean interestingly uh the Vox Hole uh zafira turbo was famous for you know very rapidly going I don’t have the number exactly but very rapidly
Going from zero to 60 miles per hour and from going as as as high as 137 miles per hour which is interesting for a car which is then framed in the in the ads as a car for the uh for the school run so in that particular ad um the daddy is
Cool and there’s daddy cool you know as a background in music for the music the daddy is cool because of his car even those studies after studies show that children would much rather cycle or walk uh to school than drive uh and the case of the 1999 uh
Land Rover free Freelander ad don’t know if some of of you remember that one it’s inspired by the 1966 Movie Born Free and I thought we could maybe watch because it’s very short um I don’t know if it’s going to work but let’s try hey boom
So this is inspired by the movie Born Free like I said about a lioness who who was later released into the wild who’s born in captivity and then released into the wild and so the the the ad sort of um the the manufacturer explicitly acknowledged that the Land Rover which
Was you know known as the vehicle of choice for many school run moms in North London was never meant for the city in that its dangerous its dangerousness sorry made it a threat to everyone around it and in fact the ad really makes the wildness of the car its main
Asset um so it’s it’s a humorous take of course on on the car ad but at the same time it g gave the moms behind the wheel the reassurance that they’d be seen as predators in the urban Jung Jungle of Britain rather than as a prey now another um visual that’s interesting or
Or rather narrative that comes out out of those articles is that of the the sexist stereotype of the bad driver the bad female driver on the school run now that’s part of another story which is the feminization of driving in the 70s and 80s that is that more and more is
Seen less of a as a ver as a masculine thing to do but just as a as a women’s chore to drive around and according to um um to many of these journals these women were uh literally modern Menace you know with their gigantic four-wheel
Drive they were really I mean we have a lot of sexist uh um stereotyping uh going around SUV females uh who are nurturing and predatory uh they’re ruining everything for everyone and that’s what’s very interesting about the sexist uh uh stereotyping of the RAS School run mother is that then it is
Used by procar people uh to reframe women as victims of active travel policies in the late 1990s and early 2000s so the school RM then becomes a feminist icon when it’s convenient uh I mean I can give you any example but I I like that first one from
Terasa May who says that Mr Prescot is targeting women uh they are merily safeguarding their children by driving them to school um so yeah the the feminist icon whose uh heroic efforts to do it all are simply thwarted by uh Secretary of State for transport John Prescot and his
Lunatic policies all right I’m I’m reaching the end of my presentation and what what really struck me at the time when reading through this is that there was no representation of walking parents and children there was no equivalent narrative or stereotyping only Nostalgia you know the kind of like oh when I was
10 I used to walk five miles or when I was six I used to take blah blah blah the bus there’s really nothing going on not even much negative representation or narratives about walking parents and children the only one I could find are I mean this is a bit anecdotal but uh
Someone on Twitter uh uh a counselor from worldl was uh uh tweeted this uh example from a current like inuse uh phonic book uh showing how miserable uh parents and walking walking parents and children are now this is not completely surprising considering you know walking as been as long been perceived as
Strange and abnormal in Britain but what’s interesting is that we are now seeing things change um with the ACT active travel Renaissance that the uh UK experiencing uh we are seeing more uh visuals more faces of walking parents and children in particular there’s one face that of Ella KY Debra
The nine-year-old who died of an Asma attack uh in 2013 whose whose whose face is has been used in newspapers and um has become the face in a way of air pollution in Britain today and who herself was walking to school uh near areas with high pollution so we have
Some faces also thanks to the the living streets and other uh critical mass uh um initiatives so I guess my my my final conclusion for today is that policies and infrastructure obviously key but so are perceptions and representations narratives and so using the tools of cultural history can help us um
Understand how Norms are built through the circulation of these narratives these stereotypes so I see those recent initiatives to reframe and to visualize walking and cycling families as something extremely positive uh just like someone was sharing the the disable cyclist uh photo um bank I think it’s so important to have those positive
Representations out there thank you very much thank you Elsa that was fantastic um and while people are having a think about whether they have questions um I’m not sure if there are any in the chat but you’re also welcome to put your hands up um I yeah I mean I suppose I
Kind of came to active travel for the same reason that I was walking with children and I’d cycled and I thought they were pretty Grim but it wasn’t until I took the oldest one to school that I thought what is this about I just could couldn’t believe it um and I think
And I did 10 years of school run to primary school and and the last day was the H one of the happiest days of my life so far that I never have to do that again um and I did wonder I mean there’s definitely that there is it is the case
That that there’s a sort of um and certainly the school where my kids went to there were plenty of people who would drive and they saw that as you know part of their identity and you know their cars were really important they would talk about their cars what kind of new
Cars they were getting difficulties with dri you know parking and on and on but what I also felt was that I think while there were some cycling parents at the time I I think um it the paps weren’t as many as there are now and there were
Very few people who are doing anything other than bring older children on bikes and I had a trailer and I felt quite weird you know and that people probably thought I was quite weird I was like that weird cycling woman and um and then
Sort of roll on 10 year by the time I like there were cargo bikes were loads more people who were bringing children to school and different sorts of bikes lots of really young children coming on bikes um and I wondered whether what you thought about that kind of that that
Whether that’s changing at all that sort of stigmatization of of people who cycle and and bring weird bikes to school well I’m sure many here would have a just a strong I mean have better ways to answer that I do think it is changing someone mentioned in motherland
The fact that we do see um one of the character on a cargo bike and she’s she’s shown as like struggling a bit so and and then there’s the dad who Cycles who’s kind of to look as a wimp and so I think the maybe those characterization are negative but there are
Characterizations of cycling parents so to me in a sense the fact that they’re I mean I’m taking the example of motherland but I could take others you know because now there is The Stereotype of the middle class cargo bike mother who’s uh driving a 6,000 pound cargo
Bike uh you know so there is this stereotype as well but the fact that this stereotype exists to me is a good sign because it means it’s out there there there’s a discourse going on it’s not completely erased or just absent from the discourse so the fact that
We’re having these discourses is good because it also means that in terms of stereotyping uh cyclist it’s not just the like C out or you know we we’re having a full like a a more a wider um uh collection of Cy stereotypes coming from from a certain area of society so I
See this as positive that I see this as uh I do think we are a lot more represented non driving families we are more represented even though we’re still seen as weird I would say I’m sure you guys have a lot of a hopefully that CH that does change um H
I can see you’ve got a hand up if you got a question I mean just what’s what’s crazy is that coming from France is like it’s insane now like it I’m from Paris when we go to Paris it’s like everyone my age almost it feels as a cargo bike
Sorry yeah that’s interesting talking about cargo bikes and back beats because um be interesting to hear from Hackney people a family in Hackney’s been given an enforcement notice because they got nowhere in the Terrace House to put their back Feats uh if Deborah’s on she can tell about parking back Feats in um
Haring but um parking back Fe is difficult you can’t take it inside most houses it w’t go through the door most doors are 78 cm and many back feets are 80 plus centimeters wide um and um in Hackney I know from Brenda PE said that you can’t get a parking space permit if
You haven’t got a registration number for a car but the trick there is to get a battery milk fate that doesn’t pay Ved doesn’t need insurance and has solid tires and put that in the space because it’s got a registration number so there are ways around it but one has to be
Rather creative to find ways around I’d also like to highlight something from the safe roots to school pack that we did in sustr in 1984 for loan region and it was a a graphic from Denmark called The Virtuous and the vicious spiral and we start off with more and
More parents taking their children to school by car because the roads around the school are so dangerous because more and more parents are taking their to school by car and you invert that to doing it by bike and the thoughts on that and the way that bike bues are
Exploding everywhere I fell over one the other day um on my way going somewhere else you know that example from East Luan i i i i stumbl upon it in my research so yeah this is one of those uh early pioneering schemes uh uh that that that yeah these These are really
Interesting to look at as as places that have um um shown us the way from from the 1990s yeah there are there are lots of good ideas I think that sort of people think point point on the point on the loan study as well it generated from the
Education department uh rules that said no motor vehicle movements in the playground when children are coming and going from school and when they’re out playing at lunchtime and so in the loan councils very much is the case that there would always be an attendant directing every traffic movement
Involving a motor vehicle on the school grounds and there would be separation of access to the school on foot for the children and to the school by Vehicles very much managed from the late 1980s onwards thank you H um Matthew I don’t know if you want to come back on that
Elsa no no that’s that’s uh I’m taking notes thank you Matthew um yes thank you Elsa really really important presentation something close to my heart I’m I’m now my children are old enough to get themselves to and from school which is great um but I think um so my
View on on the school run and that that’s what kind of got me into uh sort of campaigning was the experience of the early School run with my my young children um was that no one no one enjoys a school run um and you and Sally you said about you celebrated the last
School run you did and and I think all parents think the same but similarly they want to do the best they can for in when they’re put in a situation they they feel that is out of their control and and we do we do um seemingly irrational things but they’re all very
Well justified in our own mindset we we’re thinking immediate we thinking short time short term we’re thinking personal and that kind of tragedy of the the commons which H referred to there you know the the the roads uh the highways are a shared asset um but if if
If group of people overexploit them or um make poor use of them they force you into you know mutually destructive Behavior which is what the school Runners become and you said that thing about the fear of danger you know as a parent you last thing you want is your
Child to be injured or or harmed or anything like that and so we do these irrational things so really it’s how do we how do we tip that balance I’m talking from the Northeast um we’re fighting really hard for safe roots to school or safe roots to school um um and
Against a very timid um sort of Officer class who want who think that they’re Ser to serve the needs of motorists rather than to see the serve the needs of people and um we don’t have ltns in in Darlington um but we are um slowly getting School streets put in these
Aren’t School closure streets which is what I want but we’re getting heavy um uh engineering so vertical horizontal displacement speed bumps chicanes put in a number of schools and the idea is that this will be kind of the gateway to that school closure and as far as reading um
All I can from around the country when you get the school closure streets in place like I’ve seen in Paris you know I’ve been to Paris recently and seen the wonderful SC streets there I’ve seen them in the Netherlands um that seems to be the Tipping Point where people trial
Walking that small distance to school so it’s not bad parents it’s people making bad decisions but they’re the best they really can do at the time so it’s tipping it and final Point as a parent who who put my young children in a trailer and cycle them to Nursery cycle
Them to Primary School I was told How brave I was which we all know is just a plot for stupid and irresponsible um but you know it’s it’s a long route but that’s that’s my thoughts on your presentation and thank you very much thank thank you Matthew uh um yes
This is all really interesting stuff I agree with you uh there the side of the Tipping Point of people just all of a sudden kind of like you know um if the the school is closed seeing the the point of doing it to of of walking to
School at least for the last uh uh few hundred meters I think it goes back to what the person just before was saying this vicious um virtual cycle the more people drive the the more likely people are to drive uh the history of the school streets is
Interesting and it’ll be part of the story but it’s it’s definitely not something like what I focused on today is more than 19 90s and 2000 it’s definitely not part of the even the discussion at that point I think that that’s like what what what’s a reassuring thought and I think as uh
Campaigners it’s always good to have those reassuring thoughts is how much we’ve gone a long way that school treats are even talked about today when in the late 1990s and early 2000 these were like not even uh something that one could hope for or even yeah that was not
Even on the agenda uh as some something that could happen um yeah I um that’s interesting that the school run is what got you to to become an active travel campaigner I wonder I mean I do wonder about the effect of you know how it is that over the past 10
Year there’s been such a you know um a burst of activity around active travel uh I wonder whether in terms of generations whether people who are in their like between their 30s and 60s who are very active or let’s say although yet retired people also very active were
People who were driven to school or not like how how do these generational thing happens that if you if you were driven to school or you’re more prone to drive your children to school or I don’t know I mean these are this is all very new research so this is all the the
Questions I have in my mind of how these idea of generational change like in a way some of those kids who benefited from the new labor policies in the 1990s are now of aged to have children and we might wonder whether this we’re also reaping the benefits of these
1990s uh late 1990s policies with parents today who benefited from those I don’t know again yeah yeah even the even the idea you know there was that sort of mid90s you know we need to do things transport differently and I guess that kind of makes that a thing that’s you
Know for a certain people of a certain age you know maybe that has is something they’ve kind of carried um and then been frustrated that nothing’s actually happened um Ro Robin and Mark we’ll take your questions and I’m going to take some of the questions from the chat
Because we’ve got loads of questions in the chat yeah um yeah my my question is really about um cultural factors in that Tipping Point so I mean a couple of examples I mean we’ve long had in Oxford what we think is the school with the highest cycling rate in England which is
Cherwell school which I think has 58% of pup cycling to the school it’s not that I believe the highest active travel school but the highest cycling rate and um and then over uh we’ve had um five schools in Oxfordshire with school streets and two or three of them have
Been real successes and really swung into Mass active travel lots of cycling loads and loads of cars bikes arriving and they they have been the ones where there has been lots of um uh there have been essentially parents come Governors who have been big fans of active travel
And have taken a very leading role in U in kind of making it their personal mission spending lots of time in kind of helping and being supportive of parents in making the change um in fact one of them’s just become one of cycling UK’s 100 women in cycling of the year um and
It’ be interesting to know your perspectives I’m happy to share the examples um um uh St Mary St John’s School in Oxford is one of those yeah thank you I mean I’m taking notes at this point because uh it’s all uh uh really you know new research and
Like I said I’m I’m I’m still formulating my ideas in developing the the the research but yeah that sounds okay well well if if it’s research want you’re doing then yeah feel free to drop me a line and I’ll put you in touch with the relevant people and you’ll you’ll be
Able to pick up on it I just wondering if you’d already detected that as a factor in in changes so parents becoming Governors and and and doing that work from the inside yes absolutely that that’s a very good point I I’ll keep that in by thank
You oh there we are I see Danny’s on the yeah he’s put this name of Sally we can’t hear you I don’t know if you’re speaking I know turn Mark have you got a question yeah well as somebody who was driven to school all through my childhood and my son’s never walked
Never drove to school some of the maybe I’m the one that break the generational change but I just wondered about um the type of school because we had an incident here in Brighton where there was a crash on by a cargo bike using parent and a another cargo bike sorry a
Driving parent at a school sports day at a private school and the school basically took the side of the driving parent because you know because of all the reasons we’ve just heard about cargo bik using parents being weird and I was wondering if that would be the case at a
At a per you know state school or not and whether the you know there is more of a cultural expectation amongst private schools because certainly when we’d be doing school streets um in places even in London private schools have been much more resistant to the idea of school streets
Because their kids come from a much wider larger catchment area and obviously a better off so more likely to be driven so I’m just wondering about that that cultural attitude as well oh yeah no there definitely it’s the the whole like you know Chelsea tractor culture four-wheeler culture this is all
Pretty obviously a private school phenomenon that then sort of like becomes you know spreads to State schools as well uh but but it’s very much a private school phenomenon and and and I I’ve come upon like uh figures that show that there’s uh that yeah pupils at at at private school are more
Likely to be driven than state school so um I think it definitely goes into and also this whole idea of performance of the class performance when you’re going to a private school that the this element of like fee paying school and you know uh performing a certain kind of
Uh wealth status is is obviously related to how you um what what kind of car you drive and uh and I mean cycling has been it’s a political issue and I think it’s pretty clear also on which side you find yourself although Tony Blair drove his
Kids to school you know so it’s not so clearcut in terms of uh political uh affiliation uh but yeah I mean these there are these uh the state privat divide State private school divide is pretty obviously clearcut in terms of how um School run is perceived and and actually
Driven um I’m going to take a few of the questions in the chat we’ve got lots here I don’t know whether you’re going be able to answer some of them one of them is the censors collect the journey to work data but not journey to school
Data dat um so it’s difficult to tell but does one have a higher driving mode share than the other do you think I wouldn’t know how to answer that question someone might be able answer well it’s may be a comment all efforts are focused on the journey to work mode
Shift but not school run yeah I’m not sure about that I I always think I think that that you know they’re targeted in different ways aren’t they perhaps as well I mean in the in the late 1990s that that’s the thing is people say well
Why do we focus on the school run when actually what we should be focusing on is those businessmen who are only there’s only one in a car and they are not encumbered by music instruments and and scci science project and they could just take the tube why are we focusing
On those who need their cars the most uh so there there’s an interesting dialogue going on there and there’s an interesting debate you know there’s actually also this um figure that is repeat it over and over again that uh out of the rush hour traffic uh 20 to
25% of it is school run traffic and you see that that that figure being repeated over again and this becoming a source of tension and debates people saying well yeah but uh these people would take their car anyway so it’s not the school run the problem you know so yeah even
Even though many of them might be going on holiday so obviously the commuter TR is kind of drop all times it’s a sort of odd logic isn’t it um somebody’s asked um the SUV mum in the insulate Britain demos was a big moment in recent history I think and representations of could you
Say what your thoughts are on that well that’s one moment where I think I’m learning something uh the SUV mom I’m trying to know anym about that maybe somebody can put something in the chat R demos oh what what happened what do you what happened exactly there was a
Um inct Britain had um sat in the road and a woman driving a a rage Rover um actually drove into the person sat in the carriageway uh I think she was subsequently prosecuted for for that but she she became a a huge hit um was selling merchandise promoting mothers driving um
Large SUVs and was a car celeb for you know the right to drive where you want when you want how you want versus these you know uh terrible people trying to save the planet Etc so it kind of Po it was a polarizing point and a pivot point
In that so that’s a really interesting point and I I would put this example uh in parallel with the Wimbledon uh crash into a school that happened last summer that is this idea that you can go anywhere as long as you’re the biggest most dangerous most th frightening car ends up with that
That that logic ends us um leads us to this you know to this horrific accident that led I think to the death of at least two children and and and that’s where we need to like bring back the narrative like there are two children who aren’t here today and there are like
Two families that are like and more than that actually all these children who witnessed the the incident I think we need to bring back always the reality of what where where does that lead us is like death and and and and and entire families who are completely destroyed you
Know yeah that that’s that’s I think that’s a really interesting point and thank you for that I’m gonna take these two together because they’re sort of related um somebody’s asking has commented that um the LC whips which are the local cycling and walking infrastr implementation plans I think um that
That local authorities are now now drawing up why they don’t have schools at the heart of them and um you know they’re still largely about commuting which is kind of Transport planning generally is often about priv sort of privileges commuting um and what are your thoughts on that and then the
Second one is about school travel plans how um there’s something around how often are schools required to produce School travel plans but I wonder actually whether it’s I don’t know when that’s first started the idea of a travel plan the travel plan starts with the new
Labor uh New Deal for transport in in the in in 1998 and then in 2000 it becomes really uh uh uh very much encouraged but it’s not mandatory and I think as far as I know it’s still not mandatory to this day which is you know outrageous and should absolutely
Change um so the the school travel plan is is definitely an important moment of like of a shift in thinking for schools as not just being about what happens in the school but also what happens uh around like one mile and especially like in the immediate surrounding of the
School uh the first question to be honest I I can’t answer and here I have to be completely you know acknowledge my large ignorance and a lot of active travel stuff I’m still relatively new to it and also I’m not I’m not a British historian so I’m learning loads of
Things today but I have to admit ignorance on on still a lot of things I suppose it’s that kind of how I mean it’s the kind of we’re not we’ve moved away from perhaps travel planning but now we’re actually trying to to plan neighborhoods but we we’re still not
We’re not really thinking about kind of putting schools at the heart of that I guess is yeah and that um I’ll take Shane and then I’ll take another couple of questions from the chat hi thanks very much and thanks Ela that was very interesting I just want to
Make an observation somebody who’s been at this since the 1990s which is that at the end of the 1990s the UK had one of the highest child pedestrian death rates in Western Europe and only Ireland was higher than the UK so the school run is a valid social reaction to an
Established immeasurable problem you know there it’s it’s a valid reaction for parents to start trying to get their kids to school by methods that don’t involve their kids walking or cycling um and I think in terms of the history of it I think it would be very useful to
Compare how the media treated the issue at the time the issue of child safety and child access and contrast that if it was possible with possibly the media reaction in France to similar issues or the med reaction to in the Netherlands to to similar issues because I think
You’ll find like at the end of the 1990s that the Dutch already had thousands of Home zones and thousands of traffic Camp streets and thousands of areas where there was already a walking speed of a speed limit of walking speed and how did that happen what was the social pressure
That allowed that to happen in the Netherlands and the same social pressures possibly in the UK ended up with people putting their kids into cares um I think it would just be very useful thing to to look at if you’re if you’re doing more research on but thanks
Very much for the presentation it’s very interesting thank you very much yes absolutely I need to uh bring that so first of all those figures yes they’re they’re key to the story and you’re right it’s absolutely rational uh uh response to a situation that is I mean
That that’s what I was going through when reading all those press articles and it’s particular the response to pres Cut’s attempt at bringing children back on the saddle getting people to walk like you know you read from the Daily Mail the Sun the mirror people being
Like oh he’s this lunatic guy this guy he’s so annoying with these policies but but they have a point they say then where’s the money for school buses where where’s the money for actual so it it’s complicated but because it is a rational reaction to horrific figures uh uh
Interestingly enough I also found in the media some people saying that Britain had the best uh uh child uh um accident rate I don’t know I I need I need to check what people are saying because obviously what’s being said in the media is not always what’s what’s actually
True regarding the Netherland example there’s a very we we know there’s a well-known Now history of how uh the parents of children who were killed in the streets uh launched that whole Grassroots movement uh killed the M you know stopped to like children killing and that’s how you know we the
Netherlands came to become this uh heaven for cyclists and pedestrians why this happened in the Netherlands and not elsewhere or at least not in the the UK is something that I uh I still need to to look into uh uh more closely uh to be completely honest with you but but you’re right
Absolutely I I need to bring that as a comparison and I show why this happened I mean the Netherland is pretty unique in that in that sense but but the reasons why the the the the the factors that led to the Neal and becoming what
It is today are not unique to it and we can reproduce it in a way I mean we can try to reproduce it in way somewhere else and I hope we won’t get to like having children killed to get there thanks um I’m just gonna take the last
Two questions from the chat here I think there’s only two more one is that do you know is there any data on school run mode going back before the 80s so there are often cited um figures for the 70s where it’s basically the opposite it’s like 80% of children are
Walking to school in the 70s so I need to double check that but those are the figures that I found often quoted and then the final question is um is there much benefit in safer routs to school campaigns now um and and I guess that’s sort of thinking back to sort of
Those early days of susten perhaps in particular campaigning for kind of getting people to walk to school getting people to cycle to school um I think again I I know that when I was taking my kids to school those campaigns used to make me really angry because you know
Just telling me to cycle to school like I could see why people didn’t want to cycle to school it seemed crazy to tell people and I don’t know whether um you’ve kind of looked at how whether those campaigns have have they sort of very much stayed the same I guess in if
If you map them on to perhaps when they started was there was that more feasible than it perhaps is now um I mean it seems like it does make a difference from from what from those pioneering schools that that start implementing those safer rout to school
Uh programs uh I mean it would make a huge difference to my life if they if they just added a proper Crossing um you know right around my neighborhood um yeah um I I just to go back to what you’re saying there there is a lot I
Mean I hate to be using those um typical words of the genz generation but but this is do you do feel a sense of gaslighting you know like of the government telling you to walk more to school when you know you’re basically walking right next to
Um um what what is a freeway you know with minimal pedestrian minimal um infrastructure for the pedestrians so yeah it’s going to be an interesting research to write when I when I get to the writing stage well thank you very coming sharing sort of your preliminary findings and
Hopefully you’ll come back and maybe tell us a bit more once you’ve once you’ve done a bit more work on it um I think everybody I’m sure would like to join me in thanking you for coming tonight uh and this is our last session before the Christmas break so um we will
Be starting back on the 9th of January but um we don’t we we’re not ready to share with you who with yet so uh keep an eye out for the emails we’ll be sending the new link out tonight tomorrow but we will send you an update on the sessions for after Christmas
Sometime over the Christmas break um and I think unless anybody else has anything that a final word um I’ll just say goodbye to everybody hope you have a good break um and we’ll see you in January bye