The demise of the bike rack

When I was younger I rode my bike to school. I rode it to Elementary school starting in 2nd grade. I was pretty little then, and my friend Jennifer and I would ride a pretty good distance through a pretty major intersection. When we would get to school we would lock our bikes in the bike compound. It was a large area of fencing that all the kids would use, and it would be packed with bikes! We all used the chain combo locks covered in plastic like this:

Mine was blue with glittery sparkles in it. I would wrap it around my banana seat schwinn bike, securing it to the fence each day.

This morning I was driving by a middle school and an elementary school and noticed that both their bike compounds had been removed. And what racks were there had no bikes locked to them. I felt sad. We live in a media enforced fear of the boogie man, which prevents us from letting our kids ride their bikes to school anymore. I don't doubt that there are real dangers, but statistically speaking I don't think our reaction may be in tune to reality. Better safe than sorry I suppose.