Safer Cycling in New Zealand: Enabling Cycling Organisations to Deliver Cycle Safety Programmes

Abstract

Following a dreadful week in November 2010, in which five cyclists were killed on New Zealand (NZ) roads, the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) commissioned BikeNZ and the Cycling Advocates Network (CAN) to jointly undertake an 18-month “Safer Cycling” programme with three main projects:

- Cycle Skills Instructor Training: Historically, cycle skills instruction in NZ to children and other groups has been rather ad-hoc and varying in its content. This project is developing consistent training resources for Cycle Skills Instructors, supported by ongoing mentoring. A series of training courses are providing the necessary competencies to enable national certification for Instructors.

- Road User Workshops: Based on CAN's highly successful "Being Cycle Aware" bus driver workshops, this project is delivering workshops that put cyclists alongside truck and bus drivers in a practical setting, so that all groups can understand how to safely co-exist on our roads. Audience-specific training materials have been developed and facilitators have been trained to deliver these workshops nationwide. Other road user groups are also being identified for future training.

- "Share the Road" campaigns: Traditional advertising methods for promoting better road user behaviour have been limited in their success in NZ. This project is developing nationwide "share the road" campaign tools that depart from traditional methods and instead aim to get road users to empathise and engage with their fellow road users and modify their behaviour accordingly. Research on previous “Share the Road” campaigns and workshops/engagement with key road user groups have been used to develop pilot campaigns at particular problem areas. These initiatives are providing resources that can be used elsewhere to help all road users to better interact together on our roads.

This presentation explains the development of this project and some key highlights. In particular, it focuses on some of the methods that have been used to engage with motoring populations and get their support and empathy for a safer cycling environment on the road. The significance in having the main national land transport agency empowering the main national cycling organisations to take the lead in cycle safety outcomes is also discussed, as well as proposed future work in this area.