Middle Schoolers love this video of a wrong-way rider in New York City. So it's a great way to grab their attention for a discussion of what wrong way riding means for rules of the road. (It is also a great example of extreme restraint in what might have been an opportunity for bike on pedestrian or pedestrian on bike rage).
Some kids won't automatically process what happened here. So walk them through this after they've watched the video a couple of times.
1) Why was the bike messenger riding down the street the wrong way? (Because he can? Because it's NYC? Because the cops can't be bothered to stop him? Because motorists make way, etc.
2) Why didn't the pedestrian look left, then right, then left before crossing? Because it was a one way street and traffic was coming only from the right (so he thought). Just the reason why you don't want to ride your bike down the street the wrong way - motorists aren't used to looking for vehicular traffic coming from the left.
3) From here move into general rules of the road. Video number 4 (posted in this blog with a complete set of videos) "Ride with The Flow of Traffic"does a great job of following up on this with any age rider. For the complete list of videos click here.
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