Safe Cycling

Safe Cycling Skills - A statistical investigation

Question: Are Karoro School senior students safe cyclists on the roads?

Recently Room One students participated in a safe cycling skills programme facilitated
by the New Zealand Police.

Students learned about the correct way to wear their bicycle helmet. The side straps
should be fastened securely just below and forward of the ears. There should be no
slack in the system when the chin strap is fastened. If a helmet is worn too loosely,
it slides back or falls off in a crash to prevent this put two fingers in between your
eyebrows and move your helmet forward until it your helmet touches your fingers.
Check your helmet position and fit by looking in a mirror.

We did something called a n check where we see if there was anything
wrong with our bikes. First we had to check the quick release we had to
check if it was damaged or loose. Then we check the spokes to see if they
were all there. Thirdly we looked at the handlebars and fork to see if it is loose
in anyway. Now we looked at the chain and see if it was rusted. Fifty (if that is a word)
we looked at the seat and pushed the quick release in all the way. Next we check all the
tyres to see if they were flat.

The second session involved a skills based session on the court.
Students had to use their road rules and add on to their knowledge.
We had to show how good our balance was in a variety of situations for
example: there was a ladder on the ground we biked over, there was
cones in a zig zag which we had to avoid.

Following the court session students participated in a road
circuit skills session. There were people placed around the
circuit and marks were given for using the following skills:

My marks were:

Approx 1 metre from kerb	Scanning for hazards	Checking parked cars	Look behind before hand signals	Correct hand signal	Look behind after hand signals	% Average Across Skills
3/5	0/2	2/4	4/6	6/6	2/6	58.6%

My collated graph showed these results.  I’m better at correct hand signals than anything else.
I can tell by looking at this graph that my worst rule was scanning for hazards. I am better
at looking behind before hand signals than looking after hand signals.

This pie chart shows me that Bryce’s percentage is lower than me and Max’s.
Max has the higher percentage. Max’s percentage is higher than mine. My percentage
is higher than Bryce.

My recommendation is that we have safe cycling twice every year because are
scores were very low. I think our scores were so low was because we don’t do safe
cycling that often.