A car crashes into a cargo bike in Bearsden - and what happens next

How the road design allowed this to happen, and how it impacted the family involved.

My name is Stephanie and I am the mother of two children aged two and six. We  moved to Bearsden just over 2 years ago and have been busy getting to know the area and getting settled in. Moving here was a bit of a change from our previous life where we were within walking distance of shops, venues, parks and supermarkets yet we found ourselves increasingly relying on our car to get us about once we’d moved.

This surprised us. We had chosen to move to the area because of the village feel and had assumed that it would be easy to get about.

We found even supposedly simple things such as dropping the children off at two different locations was surprisingly complicated - the daily drop off and pick up became a nightmare of loading the children into the car, crawling to one nursery, unloading both to drop one child off, loading one child back in the car, crawling along to the second nursery, circling about to find somewhere to park, unloading and walking the child to the nursery, getting back to the car and navigating through hordes of cars and traffic either back home or to the office. Every day, twice a day.

On a good day this journey of no more than 3 miles took 45 minutes. On a good day. This is undoubtedly a familiar story to so many parents of young children, but we’d had enough.

We’d both grown up in small remote country villages close to small towns. We’d been used to getting about by bike and remember the sense of freedom that gave us - to not have to rely on our parents playing taxi or relying on infrequent and unreliable buses. So we decided to give cycling a go again. We got an e-bike through the cycle to work scheme (does make the hills easier and we were not exactly the fittest parents about) and bought a double trailer (with rain cover - it is Scotland after all). We’d been to speak to the helpful team at bike for good in the West End (who also do e-bike, trailer and cargo bike trials and rentals) and decided that this was the best solution for us at the time.

It is not an overstatement to say that this decision was life changing. Cycling an e-bike is simply joyful. Gone is the sweat and breathlessness and the difficulty of setting off from a standing start or on a hill or by a traffic light. Most of all, it made our life immeasurably easier in many small, and different ways: the daily nursery run: 30 mins tops. The kids loved it and it was so easy to keep them warm and dry as we could cycle right up the door. Shopping: a breeze - no sitting in traffic, no difficulty parking - cycling right up the door. We barely used the pram any more either. We were outside everyday, cycling. We cycled to work.

There remain many instances in which the car is the easier and better option, of course, but the bike and trailer freed us from the daily short distance car grind and in doing so also made us less stressed. We even took the bikes and trailer with us when we went on a camper van holiday.

It all went so well that once our daughter outgrew the trailer we made use of the interest free loan available through the Energy Savings Trust and bought a front-loader cargo bike to ferry the kids about and go shopping. We found this to be even easier and even more convenient than the e-bike/trailer combination for us. We assumed we would stop during the winter months but a rain cover over the cargo area for the kids and a poncho and rain trousers from your local discount supermarket as well as some pogies for the hands meant we too could remain dry and warm.

It was all going so well

It was all going well until about three weeks ago. I am now questioning our decision and I am now wondering if cycling is indeed a safe or sensible option for me and my children where we live. You see, three weeks ago someone drove their car into me while I was cycling the children to school and nursery.

It was not a massive accident, the car was going very slowly and so was I. No one was hurt but the bike broke to the point of being immediately unusable. So there I was stranded in the middle of a residential road with two children in the cargo bay of my bike and unable to move the bike.

Did the driver not see me? Were you going too fast? Where you on the wrong side of the road? These are the questions that probably immediately sprang to your mind. These were also are the first questions I get asked whenever I mention the incident.

As it happens, no to all of them. I was seen. I was on my side of the road in the correct position. I did not go too fast. I was cycling my children to school and came up to a car parked on the other side of the road. A car was waiting behind it to overtake.

I could see this and since I wanted to avoid all doubt positioned myself clearly in the middle of my lane (as indeed the highway code instructs bicycles to do) to make sure that it was clear to the driver that there was not enough space or time to overtake the car and pass me. The driver clearly disagreed and overtook the parked car anyway and drove straight into me.

The impact was a shock to both of us especially once the driver realised that he had driven into children and once I had stopped screaming and hurling insults at him (I apologised for my language but not the volume or sentiment behind it). I called the police who came straight away and were fantastic and immensely helpful. They and the driver helped move the bike to the side and helped me get my children to school and nursery. The driver, they said was fully at fault: he received a write up for careless driving and 3 points on his licence. I had done nothing wrong they assured me.

A few weeks have now passed and with hindsight I feel lucky in some ways. Of course it was shocking and utterly terrifying and very expensive but nothing much happened but some damage to the bike. The car came off without a scratch. I don’t much blame the driver either. He made a poor decision and has paid for it. I now just feel disappointed and surprisingly angry and sad. Not at the driver but at the circumstances that led to our collision.

We moved to this area because of the village feel and the quiet and safe residential neighbourhoods where we imagined our children could easily walk to school by themselves and go visit their friends. The sad truth is that they can’t. It is too dangerous. And it is this circumstance that is making me increasingly angry and sad.

How can it be dangerous? This is absurd! Bearsden is hardly a ghetto after all. Yet danger comes in many guises and I stand by my statement that it is too dangerous for the children of our neighbourhood to walk the 300 yards to their school.

How has it come to this?

I now walk my children to school and nursery and I’ve noticed that not once have I been able to make the short journey staying fully on the pavement. It doesn’t matter which route I take or which street I go down, everywhere there are cars parked on the pavement and often so fully parked on the pavement that I have to go round them on the road.

This requires me to heft my buggy off the pavement, round the car and then heft it back up onto the pavement. Sometimes there are several cars parked on the pavement in a row so I have to stay on the road for quite a bit. Usually, the other side of the road has cars parked on the pavement too, so crossing the road is often no help either.

Then there are the cars that are parked on the road in between, obscuring line of sight and making it difficult to get back on the pavement and meaning that I have to walk even further into the middle of the road to get round them - with a young child and a buggy.

This bad enough on a side street but for some of it I have to walk along Iain Road, which has vehicles thundering down it at 40 miles an hour, using it as a rat run to avoid the traffic on Drymen road. To make matters worse, they are weaving about avoiding the plethora of cars using the road as a car park. On foot or on a bike I find this truly frightening. I am on edge the entire time as there is no safe space for me to retreat to with the children as even this space has been taken over by cars. How could I possibly let my children walk to school on their own when they are old enough to do so?

And then I noticed that it is not just the walk to school. It is the same walking to the shops, or the bus stop or the train station or the park or the gym. It doesn’t really matter where I want to walk to and what my starting point is. At some point I always end up having to walk on the road or giving way to cars.

I have a car. I love having a car. It is immensely useful, has a big boot and is lovely to drive. I am starting to question, however, why anyone not sitting in a car is related to being a second class citizen. This applies from the moment you step out of the confines of the car once parked. Cars spend 95% of their time not being used but we seem to have devoted 100% of all public spaces to them. Surely, we’ve got this balance wrong?

So what can be done?

I think we need to start asking ourselves what we want our neighbourhoods to be? For me that’s a family area that’s safe for my children and easy to get about in and this may mean changes to the way we use our cars. The changes do not need to be extensive but do need to be accompanied by a shift in mindset. Ultimately, I just want my children to be make their way to school safely on their own one day. Surely that should not be too much to ask.