Critical Behavior of Young Adolescent Cyclists in Germany

Abstract

In 2019, around 29,000 child in Germany were injured in road accidents. The cohorts with the most accident associated victims were in their 11 to 14 year old. For this reason, the target group’s behavior of those who were injured was examined for different traffic situations, which can occur during transport to or from schools. The identified peculiarities could in turn serve as an orientation for the design of traffic instructions and help reduce safety risks. Different traffic situations were chosen for the analysis, thefore collected data could serve practical purposes. In total, 3,096 road users were recorded in 17 different traffic situations. Overall, every road user caused on average 0.06 traffic conflicts and committed 1.3 errors per traffic situation. The most commonly identified riding errors were missing hand signals, not looking around correctly when turning, and using the pavement on the wrong side.