Article: Why do teens abandon bicycling? A retrospective look at attitudes & behavior

[Sunyata]

It sounds like a really interesting article and really got me thinking about why I stopped riding my bicycle in high school (I used to ride a lot to “escape” when I was younger, but stopped when I got to high school because of extracurricular activities). I would be interested in reading the whole article. Unfortunately, it does not seem to be in any of the databases that I have (free) access to.

[creadinger]

That journal sounds interesting. It just started (Vol.1 Iss.1) and in the first issue there are 3 articles about cycling.

The role of bicycle sharing systems in normalising the image of cycling: An observational study of London cyclists
Why do teens abandon bicycling? A retrospective look at attitudes and behaviors
Analyzing road surface conditions, collision time, and road structural factors associated with bicycle collisions from 2000 to 2010 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

This journal is probably something BikeArlington, or WABA should subscribe to because you’d expect a lot of urban cycling research to come out of it. Stuff that advocates can take to city leaders to argue for things that will benefit the community.

Anyway, I grew up in State College, PA. It’s a college town, but there’s an actual town that is not university related, which looking back, was ideal for cycling. At least some parts of it. I wish I had stuck with cycling because the town was small enough you could cycle everywhere and I know that I truly enjoyed it. I can remember specific moments being out on the bike exploring. But at the time, in the moment, when you have the keys to a car available and you’re in high school, the bike gets put away. I regret not taking advantage of riding much more.

It appears as though a government IP is enough to give access to the full articles.

[DismalScientist]

Perhaps the issue is that parents give their kids access to their cars too cheaply. Furthermore, around here parents drive their kids to school because they claim kids walking and biking by themselves is “too dangerous.”

[eminva]

They aren’t focusing on health benefits at that age (unless they are say, cross country runners and are getting in some cross training).

I think “safety” was always an issue or at least an excuse. In 9th grade, a neighbor and I rode our bikes the ~2 miles to school. We had to cross what was effectively a busy state highway without a signal. She got hit by a car, not injured, but her parents responded by buying her a car (you could get a DL at age 15 at that time in Texas). In retrospect, it’s ridiculous that a road leading to a school with 4000 students didn’t have a signal at its only means of ingress, but our parents didn’t think about advocating for infrastructure changes. Unfortunately, that’s still largely the case 35 years later.

Once driving age comes for teens with access to a car, that opens up their range and convenience. While most of our communities have as many amenities as you could want within an easy bike ride, that “safety” issue rears its ugly head due to our congested roads.

I agree that this journal could be an interesting tool for our local bike advocates.

Liz

[rcannon100]

Build it and they will come.

Arlington has good safe routes to school, and great bicycle parking. And the bicycle parking is full by 100s of bikes.

The ‘Burbs ~ I think it was Rootchopper was part of a community meeting where even the kids were pleading with the govt just to have sidewalks so they could have safe routes to school – and the ability to get there by means other than cars.

“It’s the infrastructure, stupid”

[americancyclo]

abstract

Bicycling as a form of “ active travel” is an easy way to integrate physical activity into daily life, with many

benefits for health. Yet this potential is largely untapped in the U.S., where less than 1% of workers

commute by bicycle. The problem may start as early as childhood, given a steep decline in bicycling to

school among children in the U.S., particularly among high school students. This paper examines

childhood and teenage experiences with and attitudes towards bicycling as seen in retrospect from

adulthood. The results are drawn from a larger study that set out to explore the effect of experiences

throughout life on the formation of attitudes towards bicycling. Fifty-four adult participants responded to

open-ended interview questions regarding their bicycling experiences throughout their life course,

starting from childhood. Results show that the way in which participants thought about bicycling

changed from elementary school to high school, leading to decreased bicycling in teenage years and

influencing attitudes and behavior as adults. High school students, especially females, were particularly

sensitive to negative images associated with bicycling. The strong influence of social norms has

important implications for policy

linky

[Steve]

I also think, at the risk of painting with too broad a brush, that we are generally a convenience society. For most people in most places, driving is by far the most convenient mode of transportaion. I know we think about traffic and lack of parking and everthing like that here in DC, but in *most* of the county, driving is the quickest and easiest, albiet expensive. With our lean toward convenience, I think it is difficult to encourage using alternative forms of transportation, when the main form, driving, is fairly easy.

[Tim Kelley]

Also: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/fewer-teens-get-drivers-licenses/2013/07/31/60a32aae-f9c7-11e2-a369-d1954abcb7e3_story.html

[DismalScientist]

It’s not merely infrastructure. I’m fighting this battle at home where I get shamed for suggesting that the kids can walk or ride to school on the Custis trail or soccer practice five blocks away. Sometimes it’s because it’s “too cold.” Other times, it’s safety. Some helicopter parents think their kids should be under constant supervision. The retreat from giving children freedom leads to less walking and biking. Ironically, this leads to more driving, particularly when subsidized by parents. Unfortunately, the freedom associated with driving tends to be more dangerous than earlier freedom to bike and walk alone. (This is particularly true because early biking and walking helps familiarize kids with the rules of the road.)

[Tim Kelley]

@DismalScientist 81319 wrote:

I get shamed for suggest that the kids can walk or ride to school on the Custis trail or soccer practice five blocks away.

By your kids, or by other parents?

[DismalScientist]

@Tim Kelley 81321 wrote:

By your kids, or by other parents?

Shamed by my spouse, questioned by the neighbors, and ignored by my kids.

[dasgeh]

@DismalScientist 81326 wrote:

Shamed by my spouse, questioned by the neighbors, and ignored by my kids.

All I can say is we’re working on it. APS has a SRTS coordinator and he’s great. Now if we could get one on the County side, to free the APS SRTS guy to focus on education and encouragement (he spends a lot of his time on engineering and enforcement, since there are lots of infrastructure and enforcement issues to be addressed), that would be awesome. He’s already doing a lot in Education and Encourage (see, e.g. Sunday’s Bike Show & Tell), but he’s got a lot on his plate. Also, SRTS seems to be geared towards the older elementary/middle school set. I believe there is awareness of this and desire within APS to expand it to all students, but it’ll take a little more work, as the off-the-shelf SRTS stuff is often too young to be helpful to HS. A lot of it is educating parents, and I think Kyle gets that too. The big question is: how. It seems really hard to get parents’ attention.

[eminva]

@DismalScientist 81326 wrote:

Shamed by my spouse, questioned by the neighbors, and ignored by my kids.

I understood what you meant. If you’re fighting this battle imagine what a leap it is for a family where no one has a lengthy experience with cycling.

@dasgeh 81339 wrote:

All I can say is we’re working on it. APS has a SRTS coordinator and he’s great. Now if we could get one on the County side, to free the APS SRTS guy to focus on education and encouragement (he spends a lot of his time on engineering and enforcement, since there are lots of infrastructure and enforcement issues to be addressed), that would be awesome. He’s already doing a lot in Education and Encourage (see, e.g. Sunday’s Bike Show & Tell), but he’s got a lot on his plate. Also, SRTS seems to be geared towards the older elementary/middle school set. I believe there is awareness of this and desire within APS to expand it to all students, but it’ll take a little more work, as the off-the-shelf SRTS stuff is often too young to be helpful to HS. A lot of it is educating parents, and I think Kyle gets that too. The big question is: how. It seems really hard to get parents’ attention.

You are miles ahead of us in Fairfax, but at least we have a SRTS coordinator now.

We have had success in Vienna and more recently, Reston in getting elementary students to bike to school. Some parents conceived of a competition between schools and it has kind of taken off. The competitive instinct seems to be a great motivator. The elementary school closest to my house, Vienna, has huge participation. It is the smallest school in the county so it serves a compact geographic area and it is right on the W&OD. An obvious fit for bicycling to school.

At our house, my son (age 13) has suddenly and unexpectedly decided to identify as a cyclist. He takes long rides by himself on the weekend (the only time he really has free with school, homework and extracurriculars). He’s already using the new cargo bike to get to music rehearsal. He claims he’s going to ride to high school next year, which involves crossing Gallows, the Beltway and riding along a lengthy stretch of Route 7 (there are options, but all routes involve those three features, among other horribles). I think it’s a pretty rare kid who’s going to overcome all the obstacles and expectations and do something like that.

Liz

[rcannon100]

I cant come up with the research fast enough but I believe it was Dr. Tanya Byron of UK who did UK’s child safety report recently, whose tag line is “we are raising our children in captivity.”

One of the data points she had was the distance of freedom children experience from home, over time. And I cant pull it up but its basically, in our parents time the freedom they experienced was their town. When we grew up maybe the distance we could go was a mile or so. Now, the distance parents allow their children to go is (a) on the block or (b) the front yard.

Her argument is that this distance where parents permit their children to venture gets shorter and shorter.

For me, that distance for The Kid would be…. um…. Purceville. No wait. What’s further? Harpers Ferry? GAP Trail…..

[ShawnoftheDread]

@rcannon100 81370 wrote:

I cant come up with the research fast enough but I believe it was Dr. Tanya Byron of UK who did UK’s child safety report recently, whose tag line is “we are raising our children in captivity.”
…

So she’s rightly acknowledging that kids are wild beasts.

[Author]

Posts