1.3 Bicycle Safety Education for Children

The purpose of bicycle education is to teach children basic bicycle handling skills, traffic signs and signals, how to ride on streets with traffic present, proper helmet use, bicycle safety checks, and bicycle maintenance. As part of a regular school curriculum, education can reach every student, but providing training outside of school settings such as through parks and recreation departments, community centers, or faith-based organizations may be more feasible in some circumstances. Community-based programs could also provide greater flexibility in tailoring a program to meet the needs of specific target groups.

Effectiveness Concerns: Previous studies examining the effectiveness of this countermeasure found that bicycle safety education increases children’s knowledge of laws and safe behaviors (Hooshmand et al., 2016; Lachapelle et al., 2013; Thomas et al., 2005), but whether this translates into adoption of the safe behaviors is less certain. The balance of evidence regarding countermeasure effectiveness remains inconclusive.

Further information about the known research, potential effectiveness, costs, use, and time to implement is available in Appendix A9, Section 1.3.

---