Ready Kids › Out and About › Badge 2 › Lesson 2.3
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When a scooter stops being a toy
Judge when a scooter is going too fast for the pavement you are on, and slow down before the blind spot, not after it.
1Watch
The shop door
The shop door
A kid on a scooter comes along a pavement at a good speed, past a row of shops. A shop door ahead has a pushchair half out of it. The film stops with the kid four metres away, weight still forward.
20 secondsThe person with the pushchair has no idea she is there. She has about one second.
2The idea
It is not the speed. It is that nobody is expecting it.
A person stepping out of a shop looks for other people walking. They glance, they see a pavement, they step. They do not look for something arriving at running pace, because on a pavement nothing usually is. You are the thing they did not look for.
So on a pavement the speed limit is one question: could I stop if somebody stepped out right now? If the answer is no, you are not scooting. You are hoping.
3The idea
Blind spots, and what you do at each one
A blind spot is any place a person could step out of that you cannot see into.
A shop door.
A driveway with a hedge or a wall either side.
The corner of a building.
The front of a parked van.
You slow down before the blind spot, not on top of it. Two or three metres before a door, you are at walking pace. On the really busy stretch, outside a row of shops on a Saturday, the honest answer is get off and push.
4The idea
The shop-door stretch, done right
Same pavement as the film. This time she sees the row of shop doors coming up from fifty metres out and drops to walking pace before the first one. The pushchair comes out of the third door. She is already slow. She stops. The woman with the pushchair looks up and says sorry, love, and nobody’s heart is going.
Past the shops the pavement opens out along the park railing. She can see the whole thing, nobody about. That is where the speed goes. Speed belongs where you can see the end.
5Decide
Which stretch do you slow right down for?
Pick one to carry on.
6Look
Where you get off and walk
The busy bit
A pavement outside a parade of shops on a Saturday. A kid has stepped off the scooter and is pushing it, walking with everybody else.
There is a stretch on your route where the honest answer is get off and walk. It is usually the same stretch every day. You already know which one.
7Find them
Which of these are blind spots?
Tap the ones that count.
Find all 4.
8Your turn
Too fast, or fine
Speed judgement
Six short clips of a scooter on a pavement, seen from the handlebars. For each one, tap the moment you would slow down. It shows you where you actually could have stopped.
The score is not about being slow. It is about slowing before the thing, not on top of it.
9Do it
Before you leave this page
Walk the busiest stretch of your scooter route, without the scooter. Count the blind spots out loud: every door, driveway and corner where somebody could step out. Tell a parent the number. Next time, that is how many times you slow down.
Tick it when you have done it.
Lesson done.
Nobody on a pavement expects you to be moving that fast. Slow down before the blind spot, not after.
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