However, it also means that I can tell my 12-year-old when he says he's going outside, "Come home when it gets dark". It means my kids could ride their bikes unsupervised -- although kids don't ride much at all these days because no kid over the age of nine wants to wear a helmet (another example of government screw-up). It's meant my kids have had lots of neighborhood kids to play with. We've been fortunate that way.
You know, for all the talk of how dangerous riding a bicycle without a helmet is, for adults or children, I can’t remember any kid I knew ever suffering a serious head injury from a bicycle accident. Over the years and a bunch of different schools that must have been hundreds of kids I was at least acquainted with, and none of them ever ended up brain-damaged from falling from their bicycles. Including myself, and I took plenty of spills off bicycles (and skateboards and anything else with wheels) as a kid, once over 30 mph. Most bicycle helmets look dorky, and as you say, any kid over the age of nine wants anything but to look dorky.
Hey mom, the real reason we don’t ride bikes anymore is sort of the helmet thing but also the fact that neither of our bikes work. (Hint Hint). I like our development because it’s right next to the woods and even though you told us not to go in the woods, well...