Cycle training for all!

[Jdsk]

All the reliable data proves that cycle training has zero effect on cyclist safety...

Is there a convenient summary of the evidence which supports that assertion, please?

Perhaps something like a systematic review?

You'd have to contact Hertfordshire county council for the full data, the statement they released is basically what I said. I haven't being able to find the summary as far as I know, no other authority has collated findings from cycle training in the UK.

So "All the reliable data proves.. " is based on a statement that you can't find?

Jonathan

[mattsccm]

I have my doubts as to its real value primarily because all the incidents of cycling accidents I know of in my club and the wider social circle have been a result of poor motor vehicle driving . Virtually all have been close passes or just not looking at junctions. I can virtually guarantee that at my nearest junction I would be taken out by someone failing to give way at least once a week. I know about it and am still nearly caught out. Crap driving. All the training in the world won't stop that.
I see it a as cheap alternative to proper policing.
Many /most people drive carefully as much out of fear of being caught and punished as any form of need to be nice.

[Vorpal]

There were a couple of studies...

One looked at cycling habits after Bikeability & found no evidence the children who had training cycled more.

Another looked at the behaviour of children who had been through cycle training, and found that they exhibited safer cycling practices.

The Bikeability Trust have done some surveys, as well, but I don't know the outcome of those. A little digging around on t'interweb might turn them up.

[Jdsk]

There's a summary of trials grouped by topic in the Canadian review I cited above, with references.

Jonathan

[mjr]

There were a couple of studies...

One looked at cycling habits after Bikeability & found no evidence the children who had training cycled more.

Which probably tells us Bikeability is not sufficient to convince parents that children are safe to cycle.

Another looked at the behaviour of children who had been through cycle training, and found that they exhibited safer cycling practices.

Which tells us that the training has an effect, but says nothing about whether training correlates with reduced casualties.

In any case, I'd expect it to have only a minor effect because motorists are to blame for 80% of adult cycling collision injuries.

Interestingly, https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... g_children suggests "no evidence that training produced safer attitudes" but curiously "cyclists who obeyed basic safety rules were less likely to sustain cycle injuries" - maybe it doesn't teach the right things, which brings us back to that Canadian paper linked by Jdsk.

Now, I'm suspicious of some of the specifics of that paper (especially the assertion that use of lights, H&H are supported by scientific evidence, but also that there's a clear "all studies agree" safety evidence in favour of bike lanes) and some of the other points that probably are sound will be unpalatable (stay away from large vehicles, avoid riding on major roads), but the general thrust seems sound: most cycle training materials I've seen don't even attempt to justify why they're teaching certain things and there seem to be some gaps in the evidence.

The Bikeability Trust have done some surveys, as well, but I don't know the outcome of those. A little digging around on t'interweb might turn them up.

https://bikeability.org.uk/support/publications/ perhaps? The Impact Study Final Report there contradicts some of the above and suggests children who have done Bikeability cycle more. If so, then regardless of the safety case, that may be a good enough reason to continue training, but there are other studies, independent of Bikeability, which found no effect.

I didn't find the Hertfordshire review mentioned by TUC but I did find our old foreign correspondent putting the boot (clog?) into Bikeability: http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/20 ... iency.html

[Si]

I would suspect (with no proof) that bikeability may increase the number of incidents if it is successful and encourages more children to cycle, more parents to let them cycle and means it more likely that they ride on the road than on the pavement. After all, you don't get knocked off your bike while you are in the back of the family 4x4.

On the other hand, the last bikeability review I read concluded that it did produce safer raiders but did not encourage more riding.

As has been said many times, buikeability should be used as one part of an all round approach that includes better driver education, better policing of roads, better infra, schools buying into cycle-commuting, more 'social engineering', etc etc. It is unlikely that any one of these in isolation will solve all of the problems that we face.

[The utility cyclist]

Is there a convenient summary of the evidence which supports that assertion, please?

Perhaps something like a systematic review?

You'd have to contact Hertfordshire county council for the full data, the statement they released is basically what I said. I haven't being able to find the summary as far as I know, no other authority has collated findings from cycle training in the UK.

So "All the reliable data proves.. " is based on a statement that you can't find?

Jonathan

I have the statement, I was asked regards the summary/data, I don't have the data.
I was in error (and have changed my initial comment to reflect that) the data they compiled stated there was no difference in outcome, ergo, ineffective to outcome and more time spent on changing the behaviour of those presenting the harm and 'training' them is far more important.

Australian study re cycle training.

[The utility cyclist]

I would suspect (with no proof) that bikeability may increase the number of incidents if it is successful and encourages more children to cycle, more parents to let them cycle and means it more likely that they ride on the road than on the pavement. After all, you don't get knocked off your bike while you are in the back of the family 4x4.

On the other hand, the last bikeability review I read concluded that it did produce safer raiders but did not encourage more riding.

As has been said many times, buikeability should be used as one part of an all round approach that includes better driver education, better policing of roads, better infra, schools buying into cycle-commuting, more 'social engineering', etc etc. It is unlikely that any one of these in isolation will solve all of the problems that we face.

How was that adjudged?
Levels of child cycling have dropped like a stone in the previous couple of decades, I've seen this at my sons own high school, I'd estimate at best a third to easily a 1/4 of the number of kids using their bikes compared to 2001-2008 when the bike 'shed' (roof covered metal cage with locked gate oped/closed by the site manager) was absolutely rammed. Since the 'shed' was removed and no safe space for kids to put their bikes plus increased motor use thus making it even more dangerous, kids cycling to school has been decimated.

[mjr]

On the other hand, the last bikeability review I read concluded that it did produce safer raiders

How was that adjudged?

Asking them to see if they remember the correct answers, basically: "Pupils’ knowledge of road safety is measured with an example of something they should have learnt during the training" (Bikeability Impact Study, Final Report, A study commissioned by the Department for Transport, May 2019)

Levels of child cycling have dropped like a stone in the previous couple of decades, I've seen this at my sons own high school, I'd estimate at best a third to easily a 1/4 of the number of kids using their bikes compared to 2001-2008 when the bike 'shed' (roof covered metal cage with locked gate oped/closed by the site manager) was absolutely rammed. Since the 'shed' was removed and no safe space for kids to put their bikes plus increased motor use thus making it even more dangerous, kids cycling to school has been decimated.

While an interesting anecdote, it might not reflect national trends. Why was the shed removed?

[mjr]

The study by Hertfordshire county council that collated all the data from other councils found that contra to 'common sense', people who were cycle trained EDIT had no different outcomes to those who had no training.

That is still not what the summary of HCC's 1993 report says. It says mainly that "training had little effect on child accident casualty statistics in the 61% of authorities who supplied relevant statistics". It doesn't look certain that they examined whether the trained people had a different casualty rate to the non-trained: they could just have easily compared training yes/no for various years and areas to their child casualty rates for those years and areas, to try to detect a "training effect".

There are various theories that could explain that while still fitting in with "common sense", including that councils generally only trained one or two years of children at a time so it'd take years to show an effect in general casualty rates; and that 1993 was 12 years before the National Standards for Cycle Training and 13 before Bikeability so it would mostly have been the crap Cycling Proficiency that I did at school (ride by the gutter and don't get in the way of Mister Toad, kids! )

While I'd agree that the evidence I've seen so far doesn't seem very supportive of cyclist training as a safety measure, that HCC study doesn't look as damning as your summary suggests.

Edit to add: the summary pasted above seems to come from "The Effectiveness of Cycle Training" by RoSPA in 2001, which itself concludes "Training is an important strand in the wider safety strategy for cyclists. It must go hand in hand with measures to create a safer cycling environment and measures to improve the behaviour of motorists." - so it seems they weren't particularly persuaded by HCC's low-effect finding.

[The utility cyclist]

On the other hand, the last bikeability review I read concluded that it did produce safer raiders

How was that adjudged?

Asking them to see if they remember the correct answers, basically: "Pupils’ knowledge of road safety is measured with an example of something they should have learnt during the training" (Bikeability Impact Study, Final Report, A study commissioned by the Department for Transport, May 2019)

Levels of child cycling have dropped like a stone in the previous couple of decades, I've seen this at my sons own high school, I'd estimate at best a third to easily a 1/4 of the number of kids using their bikes compared to 2001-2008 when the bike 'shed' (roof covered metal cage with locked gate oped/closed by the site manager) was absolutely rammed. Since the 'shed' was removed and no safe space for kids to put their bikes plus increased motor use thus making it even more dangerous, kids cycling to school has been decimated.

While an interesting anecdote, it might not reflect national trends. Why was the shed removed?

Asking kids if they remembered stuff does not and never can equate to adjudging if in a live scenario that they are safer than non trained kids, that's just an insanely weak method to measure, it it basically meaningless.

Sustrans have stated that child cycling levels have dropped over the last couple of decades, suggest you take it up with them as to their 'anecdote', my son had already left the school and I didn't really give it much thought after that, but the school built a new reception area in its place and put a couple of half covered perspex shelters that are in the hard play area that fronts onto the main road. In fact directly after removal of the shed there was only one shelter with space for around 12 bikes, the original shed could take around 100 and was adjacent to a narrow road right next to the main building and as mentioned had the site manager locking/unlocking on top of kids locking their bikes up so it was extremely secure and importantly fully covered.
This is the current lot and now is hardly used, basically take cycle parking away, leave one small shelter in its place and you basically stunt cycling to school in one go
They have plans to relocate the whole school onto green belt further away from the main residential area, this is the preferred option by county to take into account the new development tagged onto the town to the North, this will mean fewer children within walking distances that are safe and fewer for cycling with no cycle lanes whatsoever, this will mean more car driving, it's utterly insane!

[Jdsk]

You'd have to contact Hertfordshire county council for the full data, the statement they released is basically what I said. I haven't being able to find the summary as far as I know, no other authority has collated findings from cycle training in the UK.

So "All the reliable data proves.. " is based on a statement that you can't find?

Jonathan

I have the statement, I was asked regards the summary/data, I don't have the data.
I was in error (and have changed my initial comment to reflect that) the data they compiled stated there was no difference in outcome, ergo, ineffective to outcome and more time spent on changing the behaviour of those presenting the harm and 'training' them is far more important.
cycle training.JPG
Australian study re cycle training.
australian training failure.JPG

Thanks

Jonathan

[mjr]

Sustrans have stated that child cycling levels have dropped over the last couple of decades, suggest you take it up with them

I would but I only found them claiming to have doubled it, like on https://road.cc/content/news/3858-cycli ... ubled-2008 - where did you see them say it had "dropped like a stone"?