When the Rubber Hits the Road

So we're in the middle of a very busy intersection, in an equilateral triangle formed by the intersection of crosswalks, and I dismount from my bike and tell my older daughter, who has simply put her feet on the ground, to do so as well.

"Why?" she asks, our turn to cross almost up.

"Because we have to cross like pedestrians in a situation like this," I answer.

"Why?" she asks again.

The light changes. The little white man on the signal indicates it's our turn.

"Because I'm a graduate of Safety Town!" I yell, leading the way.

We get to the other side, safely, which is always a bit of a surprise considering Atlanta traffic, and she says, "Safety Town! WHAT on earth is Safety Town?!"

It has been probably 35 years since I've mentioned Safety Town, since I was an elementary school student in Nassau County, Long Island, New York, going on field trips there with my class. Located in a county park named Eisenhower Park (formerly known as Salisbury Park), Safety Town is a complete miniature town, with buildings and roads and sidewalks, all built to 1/3 scale. It is run by the county police department and is used to teach a wide variety of safety rules and skills to schoolchildren.

I remember the routine exactly. Our class divides into three groups and we rotate through the three roles we get to play: car driver (in little electric cars), bike rider, and pedestrian. The pedestrian was the role folks liked least, until they discovered that the pedestrian had the right of way, and therefore the power, over the driver. Bike riders have to behave like car drivers, riding on the right, stopping at stop signs, using hand signals, yielding to pedestrians, etc. So changing from a bike rider to a pedestrian at a busy intersection suddenly gives you the power again.

And so I explain all this to my daughter, right there on the side of the road, and her eyes are wide at the thought that there is actually a place called Safety Town. It surprises even me, that after all these years of riding with her, I had never taught her hand signals and other basic road rules, but now that we are riding on busier streets to schools, rather than just in the neighborhood, these skills are necessary. It also blows me away to think that the majority of teenagers are put behind the wheel of the car without ever having this chance to ride their bikes to school and learn these rules.

(What else do they need to learn? How else can I develop Open Garden to teach the things these kids are missing? What are the Ten Top Things you think kids need to know to be independent and confident adults, and compassionate world citizens?)

Anyway, so we get to school finally (it is several miles away), and we realize that we don't have a bike lock (we had used it at the other school with my younger daughter--they had never both ridden to school on the same day!) My older daughter looks at me and says, "I'm going to put my trust in the people," grabs her violin and backpack and lunch from my panniers and heads off.

I stand there, knowing full well, unfortunately, that that bike will be gone if I just leave it. This is a school where a cell phone doesn't make it through the week, or so we hear from the notices that come home frequently.

I wait, realizing this is when the rubber hits the road, when everything I believe about the goodness of human nature gets tested. Yet . . . I just don't feel good about this, and the officers at Safety Town told me to trust my instincts.

But what to do?

Hmmmm.

I tie a string around the bike, thinking that perhaps if a child is going to steal this bike, he or she will at least have a moment to reconsider while untying the string.

I'm about to leave, when suddenly he appears. A boy named Michael, riding only the fourth bike in the bike rack (out of a school of over 1000 students, on maybe the prettiest morning of the year).

"Excuse me," I say. "Do you leave right after school?"

"Yes," he answers.

"Would you mind locking my daughter's bike up with yours?"

He smiles, happily adds her bike to his and we chat about where he lives and how he gets straight A's and how frankly, this boy is one of the nicest kids I've met in a long time.

Several hours later, my daughter calls and asks if she can stay late to practice Vivaldi's Spring, a beautiful song that she has been playing at night after the buzz of day quiets, as her sister drifts off to sleep.

I say sure, and then add, "But, hon, you have to meet a boy named Michael right after school and bring your bike into the orchestra room . . ."

Do I trust humanity? Yes. I do.

But perhaps only one person at a time.