NO matter what advantages there may be in the incentive scheme to get Lancashire youngsters cycling to school, it will surely be a non-starter.

Parents will veto it simply because it is too dangerous. The very thought of droves of children riding bicycles along crowded roads on which cars are racing is frightening.

It is no surprise, then, to find teachers expressing concern about the idea -- or that some already ban pupils from cycling to school and that few want to in any case.

The reasons are clear. Cycling is the most dangerous form of transport in Britain -- eight times less safe than travelling by car or walking, according to official statistics.

And the road conditions outside just one school, cited in our report tonight, show why. Already very busy and used by many drivers as a short-cut, the average speed along it, police say, is 44 mph when it should be 30 mph. Where is the sense of mixing youngsters on bicycles with that?

Yet, dusting off a World War Two scheme that paid pupils a penny a mile to cycle to and from lessons, Lancashire's county councillor in charge of education and young people, Alan Whittaker, wants it revived -- and hopes that cash rewards appropriate to 2001, or gifts such as CDs, will encourage pupils to take part.

It will help to cut congestion and get youngsters fit, he says. Such high ideals -- already espoused by the green transport lobby -- however, conflict with the reality of the roads being vastly more crowded and dangerous now than in 1944.

Yes, perhaps more pupils cycling to lessons would cut the nuisance and hazards outside schools in the mornings and afternoons caused by so many being dropped off and collected by cars. And it might help to cut pollution. It might also make people fitter -- in line with health campaigners' claims that cycling for as little as half an hour a day can halve the risk of heart disease.

But it would -- not might -- expose youngsters to an 800 per cent higher risk of being killed or injured on the way to or from school.

The idea, then, is just too dangerous to contemplate and should be dropped at once.