Education Priceless When it Comes to Bicycle Safety

First published in the Coloradoan, April 16, 2012 

Why Not Become a League Cycling Instructor?

By Rick Price, Ph.D.

Self-preservation suggests that you should take care of yourself on your 30-pound bike when surrounded by 6,000-pound SUVs.  Part of that care is to anticipate hazards and avoid them.  So I am baffled when I see cyclists who put themselves so blatantly in harm’s way that they are literally crashes waiting to happen.

The cyclists in this photo (westbound on Mountain Avenue at College) are waiting for the light to change.  To be safe they should all be in the center of the lane behind that SUV.  They are putting themselves in a hazardous position, trying to make themselves small, by crowding into the gutter.  They face the hazard of right-turning motor vehicles around them as well as the hazard of fellow cyclists starting out and possibly turning right.  Nobody can interpret where they are headed.  The lesson here is:  get in line with other vehicles sharing the road and wait your turn, whether you are turning right or going straight.

Headed south in the south-bound bike lane on Remington Street I noticed a young woman cyclist across the street headed south in the north-bound bike lane.  I couldn’t resist calling out as we pedaled south together, “you know, what you are doing, riding the wrong way in the bike lane, is the single biggest cause of bike-car crashes in the nation.”   She pedaled on and soon found a safe opportunity to cross over to the correct lane.  I explained that I had spent the morning teaching bike safety to kids and couldn’t resist calling out to her.  She thanked me, told me she knew her behavior was dangerous and illegal, and encouraged me to continue mentioning this to wrong-way riders.

Another day coming off of CSU campus I was east-bound on Laurel Street preparing to turn north onto Howes.  I merged from the bike lane into the left turn lane where I stopped at the light.  A young man eastbound on his bike in the bike lane came to the light, turned left abruptly in the crosswalk in front of five stopped cars, went up onto the sidewalk and headed north along Howes Street. 

I turned north on Howes when the light changed and in the next block this same cyclist came off the sidewalk and crossed the intersection diagonally to head north in the correct bike lane.  I overtook him at Howes and Mulberry where we both stopped at the light. 

I told him that I teach bicycle safety to kids and adults and asked him if I could deploy a team of videographers to follow him through town to illustrate dangerous cycling behavior.  He said no but he did ask me to tell him how he should have handled that maneuver and admitted that he “hadn’t a clue on how to bicycle in traffic.”  I explained the safest way to handle that situation as we awaited a green light. 

If you “don’t have a clue” on how to bicycle in traffic, here’s a partial solution for your own safety and for the good of the community:  the Bike Co-op is hosting a League Cycling Instructor seminar May 4 -6.  This intense seminar is taught by Preston Tyree, the best bicycle education coach in the country.  The seminar costs $200 and it’s worth every penny.  Help us teach eight hours of safe cycling skills to kids in town and we will refund that fee to you.  The scholarship is made available through the support of the City of Fort Collins’ Safe Routes to School Program.  If you are interested contact me for details.  

NHTSA's Ride Smart, It's Time to Start

This is an earlier version of the NHTSA video on helmet use that we used in Spring 2010 for many of the Snap 'n Strap Helmet Programs for 3rd graders in Fort Collins, Colorado.  The video is good for k - 5th grade.  Used with an egg or melon drop in a helmet the kids get a kick out of this. 

Overview of Bicycle Crash Data and Why We Should Teach Bicycle Safety to Kids

Below is an overview of the nature and severity of bicycle injuries among children and the value of helmet use for children.  This "overview" is the preface to a comprehensive survey of thirty bicycle safety training programs around the U.S. undertaken in 1998 by the Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center at the University of Washington in Seattle.  The overview, posted below, provides an excellent survey of a full range of first generation bicycle safety programs.  Many of these programs have evolved in 2010 to become state-of-the-art training programs across the U.S.  I've included links to just a few here:

Effective Cycling (League of American Bicyclists):  now "Smart Cycling" bicycle education program

Travis County (TX) Super Cyclist Program:  Now Texas Super Cylcist Program Statewide in Texas

Bike Ed Hawaii:  still called Bike Ed Hawaii Program 

Florida Traffic/Bicycle Education Program

The following post is from  

Training Programs for Bicycle Safety

September 3, 1998

by the 

Washington Traffic Safety Commission

Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center

 

Authors are Frederick P. Rivara, M.D., M.P.H. and  Jane Metrik, B.S.

Downloaded 11-9-2010 from http://depts.washington.edu/hiprc/pdf/report.pdf

Overview

Each year approximately 800 bicyclists are killed and as many as 500,000 require emergency room care for injuries. More than one third of all bicyclist deaths occur among youth ages five to 20, and 41% of non-fatal injuries occur to children under the age of 15 years (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 1997). Nationally, bicyclists ages 14 and under are at five times greater risk for injury than older cyclists (NHTSA, State Legislative Fact Sheet, 1998). Fatality rates (per million population) for ages 10 to 15 were the highest at 6.46, followed by ages 5 to 9 at 4.58. Similarly with injury rates, children 10 to 15 years old are by far the most vulnerable age category of all age groups (Fatality Analysis Reporting System, NHTSA, 1996). In recent years, injuries to older teens and young adults have accounted for a larger portion of the total. The proportion of pedalcyclists between the ages 25 to 64 involved in crashes that resulted in fatalities was nearly twice as high in 1996 as in 1986 (46% and 25%, respectively).

Washington State was estimated to have 712 total traffic fatalities in 1996, which  included 14 (2%) pedalcyclist fatalities (Fatality Analysis Reporting System, NHTSA, 1996). In Washington state, there are approximately 1700 police reported bicycle injuries involving collisions with motorists each year. Over 60 percent of these injuries involve

bicyclists who are 15 years or older. Bicycle injuries are nearly as frequent in the state as pedestrian injuries.

While the majority of bicycle injuries do not involve motor vehicles (MV), collision with vehicles markedly increases the likelihood of serious injury. In the largest study of bicycle injuries conducted to date, investigators at the Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center (HIPRC) found that MV accounted for 17 percent of all bicycle related

injuries, but increased the likelihood of severe injury by nine fold (Thompson et al,  1996).

Prevention of bicycle injuries can be approached through the use of bicycle helmets, educational programs to improve riding behavior and safety, educational programs aimed at motor vehicle drivers, and environmental changes to decrease the likelihood of bicycle-motor vehicle collisions.

Helmets

Head injuries account for one-third of emergency room visits, two-thirds of hospitalizations, and three-fourths of deaths involving bicycles. Helmets have been shown to be extremely effective in decreasing the  risk of head injuries. Rigorous studies indicate that they reduce the risk of head injuries by 85%, and brain injuries by 88% (Thompson, Rivara, and Thompson, 1989). All types of helmets appear to be effective, and they appear to work as well in collisions which involve motor vehicles as they do in falls or other crashes without MV involvement. They work at all ages. In addition, they decrease the risk of injuries to the upper and mid-face by as much as two-thirds.

Although helmets have been determined to be the single most effective way of reducing head injuries and fatalities resulting from bicycle crashes, only 18 percent of all bicyclists wear bicycle helmets (Traffic Safety Fact Sheet, NHTSA,1998). Thus, there is a need for an education program that will increase the knowledge about helmet use and  effectiveness. The program developed by the HIPRC has been successful in increasing helmet use from 2% in 1986 to over 50% in 1996. However, use is low among teens and may have decreased in all age groups in the last 2 years.

Other community based bicycle helmet programs have been successful. A common thread to all of them is that they are community-wide, multi-faceted and long term. Nevertheless, many of these educational programs appear to reach a plateau in their effect at about 50% helmet use. Another type of intervention, not mutually exclusive with educational programs, is legislation. NHTSA (1997, p.2) maintains that, “...the enactment of laws requiring the use of bicycle helmets, along with education and visible enforcement, is likely to be the most promising way to increase bicycle helmet usage.” Unfortunately, attempts at getting legislation passed in the state have been unsuccessful over the last 5 years.

Bicycle Safety Videos on YouTube for All Ages

Pueblo, Colorado's Safe Routes to School program has produced a series of ten videos for all ages demonstrating bicycle safety for school kids.  The series was produced under the direction of League Cycling Instructor Kim Arline.

Topics include:

1.   Bicycle Safety: What is a Bike Train?
2.   Wear a properly fitting helmet
3.   Ride a Safe Bike
4.   Bicycle Safety:  Be Visible
5.   Bicycle Safety: Ride With the flow of traffic
6.   Bicycle Safety: Ride Predictably
7.   Bicycle Safety: Sharing the road
8.   Sharing Multi-use Trails
9.   Walking/Biking Safety: Stay Alert of your Surroundings
10. Finding a route

You can view these on You Tube. 


 The videos were produced with a Safe Routes to School Education and Encouragement grant.   They play regularly on the Pueblo County and Pueblo City Public Access Channels.  DVD copies are available.
Visit Pueblo Active Community Environments (P.A.C.E.) for details.

Bicycle Helmets are Required in California and 20 Other States

 This post has posters for use by teachers in school to show proper fit for helmets. 

Safe Kids Larimer County Bicycle Helmet Poster

Safe Kids Larimer County Helmet Poster -

View this poster in Spanish   Helmet Handout in Spanish

The following link takes you to a full color, two-page poster used in California to promote mandatory use of bicycle helmets by those under 18. Note, this poster is a large file so be patient!

California Bike Helmet Poster (Mandatory Helmets were Rejected by the Colorado State Senate in 2010)