Intermediate kids get smart about cycling

Mount Maunganui Intermediate cyclists negotiate the Ocean Beach Rd intersection. Photo by Jamie Troughton/Dscribe Media Services

It's already reaching more than 3000 Tauranga primary school children every year - now the award-winning Kids can Ride cycle education programme has been wheeled into local intermediate schools.

It's the next step, organisers say, in making Tauranga a cycle-safe city.

Over the past month, Mount Maunganui and Otumoetai Intermediate students have helped trial the next stage of a safer journeys programme, run by Tauranga City Council's Travel Safe and the Kids Can Ride team which is sponsored by PowerCo through the City Partnership programme.

"We wanted to make sure our budding cyclists were using the skills we taught them at primary school and applying them over the longer distances they needed to get to intermediate," Kids Can Ride founder Iris Thomas said.

"And we were delighted to see that's exactly what they were doing. The next step was guiding them over the safest journeys to and from school, plotting potential hazards and making sure they were being responsible road users."

TCC Travel Safe co-ordinator Cindi Feder said students were given the opportunity to identify hazards on their cycle commute, allowing them to work alongside instructors for the safest outcome.

"They were able to further develop their cycle skills and navigate their way to and from school safely in a real-time, real-environment cycle programme," Cindi said, adding it was encouraging to see how many students were already cycling and felt confident with the skills they had previously gained from Kids Can Ride at primary school.

The programme took in some of Tauranga's busiest roads at peak times - including Otumoetai and Ngatai roads, and Mount Maunganui's Ocean Beach and Girven roads.

Instructors rode home with groups of cyclists, then met them the next morning for the return journey amid different traffic flows.

The Mount Maunganui expeditions coincided with a police crackdown on cyclists not wearing helmets. Although Iris said her instructors noted handfuls of adults still defying the law and riding bare-headed, they were gratified the younger generation were leading by example.

She also explained that using common sense and courtesy were two key tools for the Year 7 and 8 cyclists, attributes shared by an increasingly cycle-friendly city of cars.

"I started Kids Can Ride eight years years ago and the difference in driving habits between then and now is so dramatic," Iris said.

"We're seeing a whole new awareness of cyclists and most drivers are showing a lot more respect, especially for the younger kids. That's going to encourage more people in general to bike, reducing traffic flows and increasing the general health of the population - it just creates an endless cycle of positive benefits."

Several intermediate students, Iris said, were already completing 20km round trips from Papamoa to Mount Maunganui each day.

Travel Safe co-ordinators and Kids Can Ride instructors are planning how to strengthen the programme for next year.