Wheeling out new standards in cycle training

In September, an agreed national cycling standard will be announced and then rolled out everywhere.

The process began five years ago when it was decided that all the relevant agencies involved in cycling safety should come together and agree a national standard which would be taught by instructors across the country.

The Department of Transport set up a committee that now includes the Road Safety Authority, Cycling Ireland, An Táisce, An Garda Síochana, Green Schools and local authorities.

In 2014, Cycle Right was set up by Cycling Ireland with a view to developing such a national programme. Cycling Ireland examined international best practice. It then looked at current developmental training for cyclists in Ireland and how cycling is taught to schoolchildren.

"It was at least four to five months before we began to develop the programme itself," says Barbara Connolly, the cycling standard development officer at Cycling Ireland.

Connolly was appointed to oversee cycling training, having worked in cycle safety since 2000. She was asked to devise a national standard based on the Dublin City Council Bike Start Programme, which was launched in 2009.

She explains: “All of what we have done has been informed by what we learned at the research stage. Cycle Right is designed around three stages. Stage one is for novice cyclists while stages two and three are for cyclists of increasing ability.”

The idea behind Cycle Right is that once a standard of training is agreed, a network of instructors will attend a Cycle Right trainers’ course and then pass on their expertise to thousands of instructors throughout the country.

“We will have a scenario going forward when we will have registered professional trainers. The process is hugely about the trainer being able to assess the level of the learner,” she explains.

“We want to have a consistency of delivery and a consistency of quality and a level of excellence.”

Stage one usually involves eight hours of training with theory and yard-based practical work.

The first part of any basic training course is core bike handling skills. This involves getting on and off a bicycle, balancing while moving, cornering, turning left and right and cycling in traffic. Awareness is a huge factor in preventing accidents. All of these skills are taught in the schoolyard away from other road users.

Some 20,000 primary school children currently attend cycle training, but there is no agreed format from one area to another. Some do all-day training courses while others do set time periods, usually a couple of hours at a time.

Making the transition from the schoolyard to the road, which is stage two of any cycle training process, is problematic for many young cyclists.

“Each stage moves further along the way of training a competent cyclist,” Connolly says.

“At the moment we have very little in terms of road training. Training is happening in the schoolyard, but the stage where children get to apply that in a real environment is not really there at present.”

She says road training for every child would be a “huge step forward in terms of setting the whole thing in a real environment”.

At stage three, the trainer ensures the cyclist has all the skills to cycle in a crowded traffic environment and those potentially tricky situations such as roundabouts and multi-laned traffic. Cyclists are also trained on how best to avoid heavy goods vehicles (HGVs).

Ideally, the cyclist will do all three courses as each in turn is the building block of the other, but many only do one.

To date, there has been no research conducted here on whether the current training levels offered to cyclists has helped lower levels of death or injury, but international studies show it does. It also helps participation rates as it gives cyclists the confidence to venture out on to the roads.

Connolly stresses that cycling infrastructure such as dedicated cycle lanes are critical in not only improving cycling safety, but also participation rates.

“It is lagging behind. The plans are there but they are not in place yet. Infrastructure is hugely important for vulnerable cyclists,” she says.

“Those who are lacking the confidence to go back cycling are the ones who need the infrastructure.”

The appliance of science: students win awards for bike-safety projects Every year, the BT Young Scientist Exhibition at Dublin's RDS showcases thousands of projects from secondary school students who never fail to impress with the quality of the projects they have devised to improve our lives.

Conscious of this, the Road Safety Authority has sponsored a special award for those with projects in the area of road safety.

The student or students must demonstrate that they researched their project thoroughly and their invention/research initiative can be shown to make a difference and, more importantly, could have the potential to reduce fatalities on Irish roads.

In January 2016, several projects which either benefit or are directly aimed at cyclists were showcased at the RDS.

Three students from Desmond College in Limerick sought to resolve the highly dangerous practice of cyclists taking phone calls while riding their bicycles.

Amy Ryan and Mairéad Ryan came up with Bluemet, a cycling helmet with a built-in microphone and earpiece, to make it safer for a cyclist to answer phone calls while on the road.

A student at the Comprehensive School in Tarbert, Co Kerry, devised a potentially valuable tool for cyclists in heavy traffic.

Roisin Noonan’s Cycle Sense is a traffic-motion sensor for bicycles. It is a battery powered motion sensor to detect the proximity of oncoming traffic to your bicycle. The device is clipped on to the rear of the bicycle.

An app invented by John Ryan, a transition year student at St Joseph’s College, Tipperary, is not specific to cyclists but could be a valuable tool for them.

Arrive Alive is an app that gives the safest route to a destination using road accident data and data from cars.

The student received a highly commended award in the Intermediate Technology division as well as the special award from the Road Safety Authority.