Whatever Happened To Bikes?

Lately I’ve found myself asking a question I never thought I’d need to ask: When did kids stop riding bikes and start driving golf carts?

Seriously. I remember neighborhoods full of kids. They were walking to their friends’ houses, riding bicycles, playing ball in the street, building questionable forts out of scrap lumber, and generally staying outside until somebody’s mom started yelling their name from a front porch. Now I leave to run errands and find myself following a twelve-year-old driving a golf cart decorated like a Fourth of July parade float. Apparently that’s normal now.

Maybe I’m showing my age, but it seems odd that kids who aren’t old enough to have a driver’s license somehow have access to vehicle keys. They’re driving around the same streets where the rest of us are headed to work, the grocery store, doctor’s appointments, and everywhere else... and before anyone says, “Well, if you had a golf cart when your kids were young, they’d have driven it too,” you’re probably right. They absolutely would have.

That’s because kids will drive anything with wheels if you let them. But should we let them? Part of being a kid was getting places under your own power. You walked. You rode your bike. You burned off enough energy that your parents didn’t have to wonder why you were bouncing off the walls at bedtime.

The other thing that worries me is that driving a golf cart around a neighborhood can create a false sense of confidence. When you’ve spent years cruising around at fifteen miles an hour while everybody watches out for you, it’s easy to think you’ve mastered driving.

Then one day you’re handed the keys to an actual car and discover traffic has considerably less patience than Mrs. Johnson and her poodle. Maybe I’m overthinking it. Maybe this is just another one of those moments where I realize the world changed while I wasn’t paying attention. But I still think it’s strange that the kids have vehicles. The golf carts have cup holders. And the bicycles are sitting in the garage wondering what happened.