Being unsupervised, should not make a victim. When I was 10, I biked around my entire city 10x if not more. The assumption that parental supervision should be constant, is not rational. If it were, I would not want to be that 10yr old.
Being unsupervised should not but DOES make a child a target and many times, a victim. I am a parent and I have would have never allowed my son or daughter to ride their bike on that unsupervised path through the woods. It is a sad situation today, but these abductions are happening more and more frequently. It only takes 60 seconds for a stranger to lure a child into his car with the simple words, " I have lost my puppy. Can you help me find him?" And then what? The nightmare of all nightmares begins. Why gamble with the possibility of never seeing your child again or never knowing what happened to them? I wish you were right, that our children could be safe without parental supervision at all times. However, times have changed and supervision is absolutely necessary. This is not an assumption. This is the new reality. Had a parent or an adult been biking with Lyric and Elizabeth they would not be headline news today.