Ready Kids › Getting Around Without a Car › Badge 2 › Lesson 2.1
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Roads, paths and pavements
Find out where you are allowed to ride where you live, and ride on the right with traffic wherever you are on a road.
1Watch
Four kids, four surfaces
Four kids, four surfaces
Split into four: a kid on a quiet residential road, a kid on a pavement outside shops, a kid in a painted bike lane, a kid on a paved park path with walkers. Each rolls forward and stops at the edge of the frame.
22 secondsAt least one of them is breaking a rule. Which one depends on where you live.
2The idea
The honest answer is: it depends
Some towns allow e-bikes on paths and ban them from pavements. Some ban the faster classes from paths. Some set an age below which the answer is no. Some require a helmet at your age and some do not. Nobody tells you this at the shop, so you have to look.
Four things to look up for your town:
Pavements: allowed, or not, or only under a certain age?
Paths and trails: allowed for your class?
Minimum age for your class?
Helmet required at your age?
3The idea
The bit that never changes
On a road you ride on the right, the same way as the cars. Never against them. Riding against traffic feels safer because you can see them coming. It is one of the commonest ways riders get hit at junctions, because a driver pulling out looks towards the traffic they expect, and you are arriving from the side they never check.
If your country drives on the left, swap every left and right in this track. The rule is the same: with the traffic, on the side the traffic uses.
4Worked example
Two towns, one bike
Town A: no e-bikes on pavements at any age. All classes allowed on park paths. No minimum age, but helmets required under 18.
Town B: pavements allowed under 14. The fastest class banned from paths. Minimum age 16 for that class. No helmet law.
Same bike, same kid, two different answers. Both are made up. Your town will be a third answer, and it takes about five minutes on the council website to find it.
5Your turn
Four settings
Four settings
Four scenes: a residential road, a pavement by shops, a painted bike lane, a shared park path. Pick yes or no for an e-bike in each. Then a panel slides in showing how three different towns answered the same four, and they do not match.
You are not being tested on the answer. You are being shown that there is not one.
6Decide
Quiet road, no bike lane. Which side?
Pick one to carry on.
7Look
The sign at the path entrance
The sign
A metal sign at the start of a park path with small symbols: a walker, a bicycle, a crossed-out motorbike, and a line of text underneath about e-bike classes.
Most shared paths have one. Most people ride past it. It is the local rule, in picture form, and it is the thing to read before the path, not after someone stops you.
8Find them
Which of these are worth checking before you ride somewhere new?
Tap the ones that count.
Find all 4.
9Say it
The sentence for the one-way street
Say it in your normal voice
“Same side as the cars, same way as the cars.”
You want this in your head the first time a one-way street offers you a shortcut in the wrong direction.
10Do it
Before you leave this page
With a parent, look up the rule for e-bikes on pavements and paths where you live. Your town or council website usually has it. Write the answer on a sticky note and put it where the bike lives.
Tick it when you have done it.
Lesson done.
Where you can ride changes by town. Which way you ride does not: on the right, with the traffic, never against it.
Next lesson: Being predictableBadge 2 · Where You're Allowed
2.1Roads, paths and pavements2.2Being predictable2.3People on foot★Badge Challenge