Why male adolescent bicyclists perform risky stunts? A qualitative study

Stunts are one of the main reasons for traffic accidents, particularly among male adolescent bicyclists (ABs). Nonetheless, there are limited data about the theoretical framework of its contributing factors. Moreover, the theoretical frameworks explaining the factors contributing to other risky behaviors have not been used in the area of risky bicycle stunts. The aim of this qualitative study was to explore the factors contributing to risky stunts among male ABs in Iran. This qualitative study was conducted from September 2019 to December 2020 using conventional content analysis. Participants were 29 male ABs purposively selected from Isfahan, Iran. Data were collected through eighteen interviews with sixteen ABs and three focus group discussions with thirteen ABs. Data analysis was conducted concurrently with data collection through conventional qualitative content analysis. The mean of participants’ age was 16.4 ± 1.1 years. Factors contributing to their engagement in risky stunts were grouped into three main themes, namely predisposing personal factors (such as risk underestimation, perceived superiority, sensation seeking, emotional condition, and previous stunt-related experiences), reinforcing social factors (such as supportive social norms and weaknesses of traffic regulations), and environmental conditions (such as time conditions and structural factors). This study provides a new classification of the facilitators to risky stunts among male ABs and reveals new facilitators to these stunts, namely perceived superiority and police non-deterrent reactions to stunts. Therefore, programs on the improvement of safe bicycling should focus not only on perceptual and emotional factors and correction of false perceived superiority through education, but also on social norms and beliefs, regulations, and environmental factors.     

Evaluating bicyclists’ risk perception using video clips: Comparison of frequent and infrequent city cyclists

Hazard and risk perception has been studied extensively among car drivers, and their link to crash involvement is established. Bicyclists, in particular, are vulnerable road users. Better understanding of their risk and hazard perception could help to improve their traffic safety.In this study, we investigated the risk perception of bicyclists in a city environment. Two groups of bicyclists were compared: 19 frequent and 19 infrequent bicyclists. Participants were shown video clips taken with a camera attached to the handlebar of a bicycle, and they were asked to continuously indicate with a slider how much caution the situation needed.The frequent cyclists had more frequent rises in the caution estimate, which suggest that they anticipated or detected more hazards than infrequent cyclists. This is in line with the classical hazard perception results, which link the car driving experience to faster and more accurate hazard perception. The overall level or caution was not directly related to the rise event rate or bicycling frequency. Those cyclists who reported typically cycling faster than others showed elevated overall level of caution on sidewalks compared with others, but there was no difference on bike paths.     

Is there a spillover effect of a right turn on red permission for bicyclists?

A number of countries allow bicyclists to perform a right turn on red (RTOR) at some specific intersections to promote cycling by reducing the required physical effort and trip time. Implementation of a rule that allows a RTOR for bicyclists at some intersections could lead not only to local effects at those intersections where the rule actually applies, but also to supralocal effects. Using an experimental survey approach, this study explores whether a so-called ‘spillover effect’ of the rule can be expected. This effect would imply that allowing bicyclists to turn right on red at some intersections causes them to also turn right on red more often at intersections where RTOR for bicyclists is not allowed.The answers from 768 respondents indicate that respondents with a high awareness of the existence of a RTOR rule for bicyclists (experimental group) turn right on red significantly more often at intersections where RTOR for bicyclists is not permitted than respondents with a low awareness of the rule (control group). This indicates that implementation of the RTOR rule for bicyclists can indeed lead to an increase in red light running at other intersections. This might lead to safety issues at intersections where RTOR for bicyclists is not permitted, since road authorities could have decided not to allow RTOR for bicyclists at these intersections for safety reasons.The study also finds that men, young people and people who generally perform more risky cycling behaviours have a higher tendency to perform non-permitted RTOR. These findings are in line with existing literature.     

Introducing naturalistic cycling data: What factors influence bicyclists’ safety in the real world?

Presently, the collection and analysis of naturalistic data is the most credited method for understanding road user behavior and improving traffic safety. Such methodology was developed for motorized vehicles, such as cars and trucks, and is still largely applied to those vehicles. However, a reasonable question is whether bicycle safety can also benefit from the naturalistic methodology, once collection and analyses are properly ported from motorized vehicles to bicycles. This paper answers this question by showing that instrumented bicycles can also collect analogous naturalistic data. In addition, this paper shows how naturalistic cycling data from 16 bicyclists can be used to estimate risk while cycling. The results show that cycling near an intersection increased the risk of experiencing a critical event by four times, and by twelve times when the intersection presented some form of visual occlusion (e.g., buildings and hedges). Poor maintenance of the road increased the risk tenfold. Furthermore, the risk of experiencing a critical event was twice as large when at least one pedestrian or another bicyclist crossed the bicyclist’s trajectory. Finally, this study suggests the two most common scenarios for bicycle accidents, which result from different situations and thus require different countermeasures. The findings presented in this paper show that bicycle safety can benefit from the naturalistic methodology, which provides data able to guide development and evaluation of (intelligent) countermeasures to increase cycling safety.     

Is gaze behaviour in a laboratory context similar to that in real-life? A study in bicyclists

Numerous laboratory-based studies recorded eye movements in participants with varying expertise when watching video projections in the lab. Although research in the lab offers the advantage of internal validity, reliability and ethical considerations, ecological validity is often questionable. Therefore the current study compared visual search in 13 adult cyclists, when cycling a real bicycle path and while watching a film clip of the same road. Dwell time towards five Areas of Interest (AOIs) is analysed. Dwell time (%) in the lab and real-life was comparable only for the low quality bicycle path. Both in real-life and the lab, gaze is predominantly driven towards the road. Since gaze behaviour in the lab and real-life tends to be comparable with increasing task-complexity (road quality), it is concluded that under certain task constraints laboratory experiments making use of video clips might provide valuable information regarding gaze behaviour in real-life.     

Safety–critical events in everyday cycling – Interviews with bicyclists and video annotation of safety–critical events in a naturalistic cycling study

Research in cycling safety seeks to better understand bicycle-related crashes and injuries. The present naturalistic cycling study contributes to this research by collecting data about bicyclists’ behavior and impressions of safety–critical situations, information unavailable in traditional data sources (e.g., accident databases, observational studies). Naturalistic data were collected from 16 bicyclists (8 female; M = 39.1 years, SD = 11.4 years) who rode instrumented bicycles for two weeks. Bicyclists were instructed to report all episodes in which they felt uncomfortable while riding (subjective risk perception), even if they didn’t fall. After data collection, the bicyclists were interviewed in detail regarding their self-reported safety–critical events. Environmental conditions were also recorded via video (e.g., road surface, weather). In total, 63 safety–critical events (56 non-crashes, 7 crashes) were reported by the bicyclists, mainly due to interactions with other road users – but also due to poorly maintained infrastructure. In low-visibility conditions, vehicle-bicycle and bicycle-bicycle events were the most uncomfortable for the bicyclists. Self-reported pedestrian–bicycle events primarily consisted of pedestrians starting to cross the bicycle path without looking. With one exception, all crashes found in the study belonged to poorly maintained road and infrastructure. In particular, construction work or obstacles in the bicycle path were reported as uncomfortable and annoying by the bicyclists. This study shows how naturalistic data and bicyclists’ interviews together can provide a more informative picture of safety–critical situations experienced by the bicyclist than traditional data sources can.     

“Going through a little bit of growing pains”: A qualitative study of the factors that influence the route choice of regular bicyclists in a developing cycling city

As cities make concerted efforts to become more bicycle-friendly through policy changes and infrastructure, it is important that such efforts ultimately support people who currently bicycle and remove barriers that may prevent more people from bicycling. Travel surveys can reveal the nature and distribution of bicycling trips, but perceptions and behaviours of bicyclists are better understood through qualitative methods. In particular, developing cycling cities are unique settings to examine how the built environment supports bicycling as changes are made to increase bicycling levels. Through semi-structured interviews, this research explores the case of Hamilton, Ontario and the factors that influence route choice from the perspective of regular bicyclists. Major themes were identified using thematic analysis: (i) exclusion from road space; (ii) infrastructure; and (iii) streetscape. Bicyclists highly value infrastructure and seek routes that minimize interactions with cars, while avoiding many arterial roads that prioritize motorists. Routes that appear to be more human-oriented or that have nature are also attractive. Many regular bicyclists report that current bicycle infrastructure does not meet their preferences. Despite building nearly half of the planned infrastructure network, our findings suggest the built environment is not perceived to be oriented to bicycling. This study provides policy and practice recommendations for developing cycling cities in North America as they transition towards established cycling cities.