title: Bicycling safety and distracted behavior in The Hague, the Netherlands.
abstract: As planners and public health officials in many cities around the world seek to increase bicycle ridership, bicyclists who are performing a secondary task (such as listening to a portable music device) may pose a risk to public safety. This study examines bicycling safety and potentially distracted behavior in The Hague, the Netherlands, a place where bicycling is a common, everyday travel mode among all walks of life and where bicycling infrastructure is well developed. Based on 1360 observations of bicycling behavior, this study shows that bicyclists who were using a cell phone, listening to a portable music device, or talking with other bicyclists exhibited more unsafe behaviors than those bicyclists who were not performing a secondary task. Furthermore, bicyclists who were performing a secondary task also more frequently created situations where other people had to evade them to avoid an accident. As with distracted car driving, the performance of a secondary task while bicycling may be unsafe for the person engaging in the behavior as well as for other people around them.
authors: School of Geographical Sciences & Urban Planning, Arizona State University, 975 S. Myrtle Avenue, Fifth Floor, Tempe, AZ 85287-5302, USA. terzano@gmail.com
authors: Kathryn
authors: K
authors: Terzano
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D001642:Bicycling / Q000523:psychology*; D040421:Cell Phone; D003142:Communication; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D055539:MP3-Player; D008297:Male; D009426:Netherlands; D012309:Risk-Taking; D012449:Safety