Many children bike to school every day, but their bikes – blame it on the parents – aren’t always safe, ranging from missing reflectors and broken lights to worn-out brakes.

To address this problem, the mobility organization and roadside assistance provider Touring is launching Ring Ring Bike Squad, a free package for schools to organize their own bike inspections for students.

Lesson plans and bike check

In Flanders, the bicycle is by far the most used mode of transportation for getting to secondary school, at 46%, but many students under the age of 15 also bike to school every weekday – with or without supervision – on roads that are, hopefully, safe. Yet the bicycles used for the ride to school are not always equally safe.

With Ring Ring, Touring now aims to address this problem at the school level. Schools that register for free as a “Ring Ring School” on touring.be will initially receive lesson plans organized by grade level (from 1st through 6th grade, each adapted to the appropriate difficulty level), an instructional video on how to inspect a bicycle, and practical materials.

The educational materials cover topics such as the “7 checks for a safe bicycle” (wheel, brake, handlebars, bell, lights, tire, reflector) and use specific Belgian statistics to put the safety issue into context.

Shared responsibility

Next, the school puts together its own “Ring Ring Bike Squad”: teachers, parents, or volunteers who inspect students’ bikes, identifiable by their vests and pins. After the check, each bike receives a tag: blue means “in good condition,” yellow stands for “needs some attention.”

In the case of yellow, students scan a QR code for more information and discuss it with their parents so that the bike can be repaired together.

For more information, schools can call +32 2 286 33 84 or register directly at touring.be/nl/ringring.

Mobility Week

And some related news: Mobility Week kicked off yesterday in Belgium. Inder the slogan “approved by children”, the Cyclist Union/Fietsersbond, together with its partners, is calling for the children’s perspective to be truly incorporated into traffic and public spaces, because various obstacles – from unsafe bike routes to life-threatening intersections – make it difficult for children and young people to ride their bikes independently.

Of the approximately 7,000 km of bike paths along Flemish regional roads, 40% receive a failing grade in the Roads and Traffic Agency’s own quality assessment. That amounts to more than 3,000 kilometers…