We played in the street. We rode our bikes and did crazy stuff without helmuts.
We walked miles to school alone.
We made skate boards from Skates nailed to the board.
I used to sit on the station wagon tailgate when the car was jam packed full. One day I thought it would be funny to hop off and be missing once we arrived home, so I did so about a block away. The car was doing about 30mph. That was when I got my first physics class for seven year olds regarding moving and stationary objects, velocity, and deceleration. I looked like a road rash pizza for about a month.
Starting in first grade I had to walk 28 blocks each way hauling all my books in a satchel that was half as big as me. Two years ago they local school district redid the school bus map...some kids had to walk as much as three blocks to the bus stop and parents practically burned the place down at the school board meeting.
When I was about 10, we lived on a street on a steep hill. The road took a 90 degree turn at the bottom of the hill, where there was a barbed wire fence. I got a metal wheeled skateboard and started down the hill. Well over half way down I realized that I was going way too fast to make the turn or to jump off without getting hurt. So I crouched down and sort of sat down on the asphalt just before the turn. I tore the seat out of my pants and still ended up in the barbed wire.