According to the Ministry of Culture, as early as the 2nd and 3rd grades, children should train their balance, reaction and concentration with special exercises in the gym, on the sports field or school yard in order to become safer when cycling. Education Minister Anna Stolz (Free Voters) and Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) want to present details of the new cycling license on October 23rd during a visit to a Munich school.
Children are unsafe on bikes, especially in the city
Around 90 percent of fourth-graders pass the bicycle test, as reported by the police headquarters in Upper Bavaria South and Swabia North. However, the number of children who failed the exam is continually increasing, according to the Middle Franconia police headquarters. Many children in the city cannot cycle or cannot cycle well enough. The number is also increasing in rural areas.
According to experts, the reasons for this are complex. According to traffic educators from Middle Franconia, it is striking that more and more families are not teaching their children to ride a bike at all. However, the youth traffic school in the 4th grade is not intended for children to learn to drive there. It would be about being able to implement the traffic rules, for example to be able to turn safely on the street.
Too little exercise at home
In the south of Upper Bavaria, police experts also found that parents practiced with their children until they started school, but no longer after that. At the youth traffic school in the 4th grade, children regularly said that they had not ridden their bikes at all in recent years, explains the police headquarters in Rosenheim. Accordingly, they are then unsafe.
The Bavarian Teachers’ Association (BLLV) is therefore critical of parents bringing their children to school by car. “The parent taxi is actually counterproductive to the cycling license,” says BLLV President Simone Fleischmann. “Children become roadworthy when they go to school on their own.”
School can’t fix it alone
Fleischmann welcomes the fact that cycling training is being moved forward with the motor skills exercises in the 2nd and 3rd grades. “The children receive badges in gold and silver after the exercises.” But the school alone cannot ensure more safety on bikes. “This is something that parents also have to train at home.”
“Many parents are already doing this, but far too little,” says Laura Ganswindt from the General German Bicycle Club of Bavaria eV (ADFC Bayern). A key to this is more safety for cyclists in road traffic, such as 30 km/h zones, school streets temporarily closed to car traffic and wider cycle paths that are separated from the road. “If parents experience the street space as safe, they are more likely to move around with their children through active mobility.”
