Bicycle Safety Education Program

About the Program

Category: Parks and Recreation (Best in Category)

Year: 2013

1. Abstract of the ProgramThe Miami-Dade County Parks, Recreation and Open Spaces (PROS), in collaboration with the University of Miami, developed, implemented and continue sustaining the BikeSafe™ Program. The Bicycle Safety Education Program is an injury prevention program which aims to improve children’s bicycle safety, increase physical activity levels of children, and improve bicycling environments around parks and schools. The program follows a “5-E” model that includes elements of: Education, Enforcement, Engineering, Encouragement and Evaluation. The program was developed in order to improve bicycle safety knowledge and bicycle handling skills in middle school-aged children, while also encouraging bicycling as a recreational physical activity and a form of active transportation. The program is implemented in Miami-Dade County PROS Spring and Summer camps. Results from a pilot evaluation of the program indicate that on- and off-bike educational curriculum is effective at increasing middle school-aged children’s bicycle safety knowledge. Specifically, the program implementation has shown to produce improvements in all outcome measures in campers who participated in the course, including: helmet use and proper helmet fit, bicycle hand signals, and identifying safe places to bicycle. A total of 776 children have received bicycle safety combined on- and off-bike education in Miami-Dade County PROS camps since the program implementation in the summer of 2010.