Dangerous Roads newsletter: A mom faces her son's first solo bike ride around their Long Island neighborhood

First smiles. First steps. First words.

As parents, these are the milestones we live for, but others lurk in our future that fill us with less joy and more dread. Mostly dread.

The first time you hand your child a set of real car keys I imagine is probably the worst.

But as the mother of a 9-year-old boy, that's a problem for another day. And at least when it does arrive, it will come with plenty of warning.

I was less prepared when I turned on my car, checked its backup camera, and saw a small herd of kids on bicycles parked at the end of my driveway, their faces yearning for another to join their squad.

My son wanted to ride his bike around the neighborhood with friends, without the adult supervision that has followed him throughout every aspect of his life up until this point.

I thought I had at least one more year before this rite of passage would begin, but instead it blindsided me on a random Sunday evening when I was about to go out for a few hours, leaving my children with their father.

As parents we’re always playing this tug-of-war between protecting our children and wanting to let them spread their wings. We rely on a mixture of wisdom, gut instinct and consensus from other trusted parents in our circle to make the most informed decisions we can.

In the small group of friends inviting my son to embark on this new adventure were children whom I’ve grown to trust, along with their parents, and I know my son has consistently proven he is a good kid.

So I retrieved my son from the house, and did a quick reminder of the rules of the road — always wear your helmet, make sure you look both ways, make sure drivers see you and stay away from busy streets.

And then, because my son doesn’t have a cellphone or smartwatch yet, I frantically threw an Apple AirTag in his pocket, so I could track him like a set of keys.

It was all I could do to give myself some control in this situation, because the biggest X factor here is Long Island’s notoriously dangerous drivers.

As Newsday has reported, traffic crashes were the leading cause of accidental death among young people ages 5 to 19 on Long Island from 2018 to 2023, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

Eighty-two pedestrians and cyclists were killed in 2023 — a number that has fluctuated only slightly since the 1990s, even as deaths among motor vehicle occupants declined through 2019.

When my son returned home from his first trip a few hours later, my husband and I were relieved, and my son was rather pleased with himself. We all knew this was just the beginning of a new phase in his life.

What's a parent to do?

Parents will use whatever tools they have at their disposal to protect their kids, including GPS trackers. My AirTag was a relatively cheap ($25) and quick solution in the moment, but tracking it on my phone was a bit delayed and I had no means to communicate with my child. This became a problem a few days later when he was still out on his bicycle, not realizing the sun was going down — and quickly.

I’m not ready to hand him a smartphone, but after consulting with my circle of trusted moms, I too purchased a Gizmo smartwatch ($150) for my son and connected it to my mobile plan ($10 per month) for some peace of mind. Now, I can track him more closely and we can communicate through it using calls and text messages.

I also sat my son down and showed him a Google map of our neighborhood, so he can get a better sense of where he is allowed to travel with his friends.

I wanted him to understand why certain roads were off limits, so I also pulled up Newsday’s map showing crashes in our neighborhood. We had a serious discussion about the different colored dots on that map: that they meant someone had lost their life or was seriously injured.

If our kids are ready to hit the roads without their parents, they should understand the real dangers, so they can do their best to avoid them.

Perhaps we should too. If, every time we got behind the wheel, we took a few seconds to absorb the dangers and the life-altering consequences they can have, we might not have that drink, send that text or speed to beat that red light.

And maybe instead, we could be on the lookout for those kids on their bicycles, soaking in the sun and their newfound freedom. We used to be them.