I don't know, HD. I don't know if other 11-year-olds were riding all the way across this large city by bus back then, but I do know that it didn't seem unreasonable. Even much younger than that, it was common for kids to be sent outside to play. We would go "call on our friends" and see who was home. We'd come back in at lunch time when we were hungry and then it was back outside to play. I remember even at 5 or 6 years old, that was typical.

It was normal for young kids to wander all over a neighbourhood or hop on a bike and ride over to friends' houses and no one thought anything of it. We had a lot more freedom and we weren't paranoid about kids being snatched. That didn't really seem to be much of "a thing" till about the early 1980s when we heard about Adam Walsh, a 5-year-old boy in the US who went missing while in a department store with his mum. They eventually found his severed head, but never did find his body.

It was all over the news and it seemed to be a turning point for parents being more aware and afraid for their kids.

I remember at my high school (it's just across the field from where I live now!), the car park for students had a bunch of old 'rust buckets' and there were plenty of unused spaces. Kids were lucky if they could get some old relic that was held together with rope and duct tape, and most of us did not have cars or even driving licenses.

Now, I walk past that car park and it's absolutely packed, and it's full of shiny new cars (I mean, new looking). SUVs and beautiful vehicles, not a rust bucket in sight.

Their own cars? Taking parents' cars for a whole day? Bit of both perhaps - shocking.

I had a friend here whose daughter was still living at home well into her 20s (lost track of them now). Mum and dad had super busy, demanding jobs but Miss Princess didn't want to learn how to drive and heaven forbid they should make her take a bus, so they'd ferry her everywhere, to school, to work, pick her up - try to cram these extra trips into their own hectic lives.

She'd had one driving lesson - finally - in her early 20s and she found the instructor to be stern or harsh or something, and would never have another one. But she was so outrageously sensitive, I'm sure it was a complete overreaction on her part and the instructor was probably just fine.

Anyway - that kind of coddling sends me over the edge. How can kids learn to trust themselves or have confidence in themselves if they're shielded from situations that give them those opportunities??!?

It's so dumb.