What should you teach your child about swerving around hazards?

Swerving is a helpful technique that will allow your child to safely cycle around hazards like potholes or pieces of debris on a path. Provided your child can ride around with reasonable control, this activity can be helpful to introduce fairly soon since it will help them to further improve their control of their bike and use of the steering.

You can demonstrate to your child how they can swerve around objects – cones can be helpful for this – by using the steering and shifting their body weight. Rather than teaching your child to swerve using wide “S” shape movements, you should encourage them to swerve through more gentle or subtle changes to the steering: This will ensure they swerve closer to the object that they are trying to avoid and therefore do not over rotate on the steering or swerve into the path of other hazards!

When they practise this technique, it may be tempting for your child to look down at the hazard, which can make it tricky to balance. Instead, teach your child to keep their head up as this will help them control their bike better and avoid the object or hazard that they are trying to negotiate!

What should I teach my child about swerving around hazards on a bike?

From Unii's Learning to Cycle Journey, we share how to teach your child to swerve to avoid an accident.