More than the idea of teaching kids how to ride a bicycle, it’s important to teach them about road safety. After all, no parent wants to see their kids get injured — or worse — get killed. But a video of a father filming his son cycling on his way to school sparked a debate. While the father insisted he was right, most people think he was wrong.
A 36-year-old father named Ashley Zhang-Borges shared a video he filmed himself that left viewers on the edge of their seats after a car squeezed past his son while cycling.
After he saw a car heading in the opposite direction, the kid could be heard asking his dad if he should pull over.
“Should I pull over to the side?” the kid asked Zhang-Borges as the car approached them.
Zhang-Borges told his son to “keep going” instead of telling him to stop. After the driver drove past them, Zhang-Borges shouted: “Aren’t you going to stop?” In an attempt to calm down his son and avoid causing panic, Zhang-Borges told his 5-year-old kid: “Keep going, don’t worry. That driver absolutely should have stopped.”
Zhang-Borges then shared the video on Twitter in November 2022, expressing his concern over the safety of his child following the incident.
“How can we expect parents to let their kids ride to school if this is how their neighbors drive towards them? He’s five by the way and this is 100m from his home,” he wrote in his tweet, although his account is currently blocked.
English television host and radio personality Jeremy Vine, who is a known cycling advocate, posted the video on Twitter and asked his followers who between the 5-year-old kid and the car driver was in the wrong.
Be sure to reach the end of this article to see the full video
Among those who reacted to Vine’s tweet was British politician Sajid Javid, who quote-tweeted Vine’s tweet and said the blame should be on the 5-year-old’s father.
The father then hit back at Javid in a separate interview. “In his 2019 spending review, he didn’t announce any funding for active travel,” he said.
Vine came to Borges-Zhang’s defense, saying the latter is a “brilliant dad” for making sure the moment was caught on camera.
“People attacking the father are the exact same people who complain about children cycling on pavements. The person filming this is a brilliant dad,” Vine said.
When another Twitter user called Vine out for defending Zhang-Borges’ child and told him he shouldn’t have made a 5-year-old kid ride a bicycle on the road, Vine hit back by saying bad drivers make roads dangerous.
“Roads are dangerous because of bad drivers. Bad drivers must be forced to look out for others. Clearing space for them makes them worse,” he said.
The Surrey Police also sided with Zhang-Borges in a tweet, where they said: “If you look ahead there is a pinch point with priority to traffic traveling the same direction as the riders. Had there been a car traveling towards the driver would have had to of pulled over in the gap behind the parked cars.”
Zhang-Borges, who appeared on Vine’s show, insisted that his child has every right to ride a bike on the road.
“The facts are clear on this one, the driver was wrong, and my son has every right to ride on the road. That’s clear cut,” Zhang-Borges said.
While most disagreed with Zhang-Borges, there were also those who thought he was right. “He has every right to #ride on the road. Cycling is free, #healthy, produces zero #emission & frees up the road for other vehicles,” one user wrote.
Take a look at this video of a five-year-old cycling to school. He
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