Analyzing "Best Practices White Paper: Road User Behavior Change Campaigns"

Seattle, Washington is experiencing a rapid increase in the number of bike riders traveling the city. As such, there has been increased anger and frustration felt from drivers because of the new traveling addition to the road. The attitude toward cyclists is a negative one, they are seen as taking up space on the road and slowing commuting times. While cyclists view drivers as oblivious and greedy for road space. Both travels appear to view the other as rule breakers and selfish.

In order to combat this tension between road users, there have been numerous traffic safety campaigns attempted in several U.S. cities. Whether or not these campaigns work to alter the cyclist-driver attitude, though, is still under research. For now, it is understood that there are many different types of campaigns, and the "Best Practices White Paper: Road User Behavior Change Campaigns" works to analyze these traffic safety campaigns and the different behaviors they work to target, in addition to their effectiveness.

In particular, this article pinpointed "problem behavior" from both drivers and cyclists and different campaigns that coincided with reducing that behavior. The reason being that there is a "body of research on the effectiveness of crash reduction strategies. The majority of the studies cited relate to the physical environment (e.g. geometric design or signalization), but some address behavioral countermeasures." Since there is limited information about the behavioral aspect of reducing crashes between bikes and cars, this article analyzes traffic safety campaigns in order to see if they're effective in reducing negative behavior toward cyclists and thus working to expand the body of research. There were numerous campaigns, all that were referenced are listed below and include the topics discussed:

Although there were many topics discussed, results from the analysis concluded that the majority of the traffic safety campaigns centered around:

• Running red lights

• Speeding

• Lack of lighting at night

• Not yielding to pedestrians

• Proper bike lane parking and driving

• Bicycling on sidewalks protocol

From all of these initiatives, it was difficult to measure each campaign's effectiveness as the term "effective" can be subjective depending on the behavior they are trying to change and because finding a measurement for determining effectiveness is challenging. In most cases, effectiveness was not illustrated because it was not articulated by the campaign organizers or measurements were difficult to explain in quantitative terms. Thus the data collected from this study was not the most useful, especially as part of the experiment was to discover effectiveness.

Furthermore, it explains how little data is present about effective bike safety campaigns. It is understood from polls and surveys that there is tension between cyclists and drivers; however, there is very little data present that can help alter that behavior. Behavior, however, is a difficult and seemingly impossible concept to construct into numerical values. So although the data is limited for understanding bike safety initiatives, it is well understood from this paper that there are clearly individuals and organizations who wish to change certain behavior and alter the cyclist-driver relationship for the better.

In light of past articles we've discussed, it's important to note that both state governments, non-profits, and individuals are working to change the current unsafe situation in place for cycling and driving. Although collecting data in regards to effectiveness is complicated, there is certainly the possibility for more research and further exploration of bike safety campaigns - especially because the campaigns studied were only on the West Coast - and continuous polling/surveys after these events can help understand effectiveness, particularly if a survey is given prior to certain events held by the campaigns.