Safest bike brakes for toddlers/preschool children, sized for 16 inch bikes or 12 inch bikes?

What are the safest and most effective bike brakes for toddlers/preschool children, sized for 16 inch bikes or 12 inch bikes?

With small children, their needs might be different when biking than us adults.

When considering brakes, do children have the same considerations as adults? As adults, we often select things based on what looks cooler or what is best for us. Is that the best plan?

Here at Adept Family brand, we have found that the smallest children that are able to ride bikes often have trouble with the strength and coordination to effectively use hand brakes. Our tests on kids sized for 16 inch and 12 inch bikes found that stopping distances were significantly better with coaster brakes. Most children should probably wait until they are big enough for a 20 inch bike before transitioning to hand brakes. The children tested were also able to learn to use coaster brakes much faster than hand brakes, and from that we deduce that reaction time when emergency braking is necessary is quicker with coaster brakes also.

Our results are generally pretty clear, but any individual child could be different. Some kids, especially if they’ve had hand brakes on their balance bike, may be effective laying skid marks with the hand brakes early.