What the law actually requires
Worth settling first, because it is widely misremembered.
- Helmets are not compulsory in the UK, at any age. The Highway Code recommends one; there is no legal requirement, and a child riding without one is breaking no law.
- Lights are compulsory between sunset and sunrise: a white light at the front and a red light at the rear, both fixed to the bike, plus a red rear reflector and amber pedal reflectors on bikes made since the mid-1980s. Flashing lights are permitted. A head torch does not count as the main light.
- Cycling on a pavement beside a road is technically an offence unless the path is marked as shared use. In practice police are expected to use discretion, particularly with children and nervous riders, and a small child riding on the pavement is not something anyone sensible objects to.
- There is no minimum age for cycling on the road. It is a parental judgement, and a parent can be held responsible for inadequate supervision.
- A bell must be fitted on a new bike at the point of sale but need not be kept on it.
The bike has to fit now
The commonest mistake is buying the bike a child will grow into. A frame that is too big is harder to control, harder to stop and harder to get a foot down on, and the year spent growing into it is the year with the accidents in it.
Sitting on the saddle, a child should be able to put the balls of both feet on the ground, and a beginner wants to be flat-footed. The saddle goes high enough that the leg nearly straightens at the bottom of the pedal stroke but not so high that getting a foot down is a scramble. Knees should clear the handlebars. Brake levers must be reachable and squeezable by a child's hand — a lever a child cannot pull hard enough is the same as no brake, and reach-adjust levers exist for exactly this.
The check before riding
Three things in thirty seconds, and they are the three that fail.
- Brakes. Both of them, pulled hard, with the lever not touching the bar and the wheel actually stopping. Rims and pads wear and cables stretch; wet weather doubles the stopping distance on rim brakes.
- Tyres. Inflated to the pressure printed on the sidewall. Soft tyres roll off rims and handle badly.
- Quick-releases and wheel nuts. Wheels do come loose, and a front wheel leaving the forks at speed is the worst mechanical failure available.
Beyond that: chain oiled, nothing rattling, handlebars and saddle tight, and the reflectors still attached.
Helmets
A helmet is designed to absorb a single impact by crushing, which is why it is replaced after any crash in which it struck something, however intact it looks. Look for the European standard marking rather than a brand claim.
Fit is the part that gets wrong, and the older advice on this is garbled in a way worth correcting. The common instruction to leave "two to three inches between the eyebrows" would put the helmet on the back of the head. The actual rule is:
- Level on the head, not tipped back, with the front edge roughly two finger-widths above the eyebrows.
- Snug enough that it does not move when the head is shaken, before the strap is done up. Sizing pads adjust this.
- Side straps forming a V under the ears, and the chin strap tight enough that no more than a finger slides underneath. A child who can open their mouth wide and feel the helmet pull down has it about right.
- Nothing underneath it — no hood, no cap, no hat.
Two things that older advice on this overstates. A badly fitted helmet is worse than it should be but not literally as dangerous as no helmet; and the claim that minor bike accidents "become fatal" without one does not survive contact with the figures. Helmets reduce head injury in falls and are worth wearing. They do not make a child safe in traffic, and they are no substitute for any of the rest of this page.
Knee and elbow pads are worth having for a child learning, or riding a scooter or skateboard, where the injuries are grazes and the pads prevent them. They do nothing for the injuries that actually matter on a road.
Being seen
Lights are a legal requirement after dark and the single cheapest risk reduction available. Beyond the legal minimum, a flashing rear light in daylight is visible at a distance that a dark jacket is not, and reflective material on the ankles moves, which is what catches a driver's eye. Reflective strips on a bag or a tabard do more than a pale coat.
Dusk is the dangerous hour rather than full dark, because that is when lights are not yet on and drivers are still relying on their eyes.
Training
Bikeability is the national cycle training scheme and is the single most useful thing on this list. It runs through many primary schools and local councils, is often free, and teaches riding in traffic in stages — control in a traffic-free space first, then quiet roads, then busier junctions. A child who has done it rides visibly differently.
It is also worth knowing that the scheme teaches road position that looks assertive to a parent who learned to ride in the gutter. Riding well out from the kerb, and taking the centre of the lane at junctions and pinch points, is current best practice and the Highway Code now supports it.
On the road
The hazards for a child cyclist, in rough order of how often they cause harm:
- Junctions. Most collisions happen where a road meets another road, usually because a driver did not look. Slowing and making eye contact beats having right of way.
- Parked cars. Doors open without warning, and riding a door's width out from the row of cars is the habit to teach. Pulling out between parked cars into traffic is the other half of the same problem.
- Left-turning lorries and vans. Never alongside one, never up the inside of one, and never in the space between a long vehicle and the kerb.
- Riding into the road from a drive or path without stopping.
Hand signals, a glance behind before any move, and riding on the left with the traffic rather than against it. Riding two abreast is legal and is sometimes safer, though single file suits narrow and busy roads.
Riding together
With a child who is new to roads, the adult rides behind and slightly out, which both protects the child's road position and keeps them in view — in front means not seeing what they do. On quiet roads, letting a child make their own decisions and discussing them afterwards builds judgement faster than instructions called out from behind.
Before any road riding at all, a child should be able to ride in a straight line, look over their shoulder without wobbling, signal one-handed, and stop where they intend to. A traffic-free space is where those are learned, and there is no hurry about the rest.