ANALYSIS OF YOUNG CYCLISTS' TRAFFIC BEHAVIOUR --ROAD USER BEHAVIOR. THEORY AND RESEARCH. PAPERS PRESENTED AT THE 2ND INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ROAD SAFETY HELD IN GRONINGEN, NETHERLANDS, AUGUST 1987

Cyclists and moped riders are high risk traffic participants. In 31% of the registered traffic accidents in the Netherlands which lead to personal injury of the driver, at least one cyclist is involved and 27% of the drivers killed is a cyclist. Looking at accident numbers in greater detail, it is clear that young children are a specific high risk group, since about a third of all bicycle accidents involve cyclists younger than 18 years of age. In order to improve the safety of young cyclists various measures and precautions are considered. One of the possibilities is education, provided that the training situation, methods and materials meet specified criteria. The formulation of educational objectives is a crucial phase in the development of an educational programme. Ideally, the educational objectives are based upon a comparison of data concerning accidents, behaviour, knowledge, attitudes and cognitive abilities of the target group, and the required cycling behaviour. However, the assessment of discrepancies between required and everyday practice is limited because not much information is available on this. Required behaviour can be formalized in a normative task analysis. Such a normative task analysis was carried out to provide a description of a normative cycling performance under all possible traffic conditions. It is shown that, generally, young cyclists are performing rather inadequately in traffic as measured by accident numbers and observed behaviour. Vehicle control develops with experience, (i.e. Age), but apparently this is a necessary but insufficient condition for participating safely in modern traffic. It is certain that traffic education is not superfluous and further basic research as described here is still necessary. For the covering abstract of the conference see IRRD 815404.